


Claiming the Dark Singer

by femme4jack, gatekat



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatekat/pseuds/gatekat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unfinished and likely to stay that way.<br/>Bayverse, Jazz/Optimus Prime<br/>After millennia at war, the Autobots have finally captured one of Megatron's command officers.  Yet the method of conversion could be arguably as Decepticon-esque as anything the saboteur-assassin has done in the name of his cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I on line aching, but to little actual pain given I'm chained spread-eagle, suspended in a well-lit cell with transparent walls and nothing but me in it. Designed specifically after my last escape, I have to give them credit for learning. Or at least their SIC for it. Mech would have made a right fine Con.

Suitably brutal too. Have to respect anyone capable of making me scream. Capable of making me beg for them to stop. I can count on one hand the number of living mechs capable of it, and all but this one are my fellow officers.

The cell's well lit, open on all sides for my guards to see every movement, every twitch, offering no concealment even if they eventually unchain me, which isn't likely with my track record. They even stripped me down to my protoform as the interrogation went along.

"Go ahead and struggle, Con," a voice that makes me shiver as badly as Soundwave in one of his moods caresses my form, lighting sensors and specialized receivers all over my frame. I can't see him, he's behind me still, but there is no way I can forget the dull brown mismatching of parts that is the Autobot SIC and SpecOps commander.

"Back for more?" The raspy voice is barely recognizable to my own audios as mine. He made me scream, he made me beg, but he's mistaken if he thinks he's broken me. "I still won't tell you anything."

A low, resonant chuckle washes over my protoform skin, still sensitive at being exposed for the first time in longer than I can remember as he walks around my cell to look me in the faceplates.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'm done with you," Eclipse, my counterpart here, tells me with a grin and look that is anything but reassuring. "You get to deal with Prime now. He's not nearly as kind as I am."

I'm not sure what expression I'm wearing, but he grins even more.

"I don't interrogate sparks. That's his specialty."

I am so fragged.

There isn't a mech functioning, not even Megatron, that can resist the Prime spark to spark.

* * *

"He's ready for you," the gruff voice said as the bulky guardian entertained Prime's private meditation chamber. It was a plain yet beautiful space of dark, polished obsidian walls lit by a small fixture of luminescent crystals in the corner.

"Yes, but am I ready for him? I hate this, 'Hide. This isn't why Primus gave me this gift." The voice from the kneeling mech almost sounded like the one he'd had while still the mechling Orion.

"No, 'taint, Optimus. But you know as well I as I do that you'll be saving a lot more sparks than just his by sorting out that black hole inside his chest."

"Perhaps," Prime said, standing and leaning his helm on the helm of the guardian who had once towered over him. "He may take just as many sparks if he comes over to our side."

"Con sparks, Prime, don't you forget that," Ironhide gripped his shoulders and looked up at his optics.

"They are still sparks, still children of Primus."

* * *

The special holding room fell silent when Optimus Prime walked in, flanked by Ironhide and three of the Bladebrothers. Deep blue optics met nearly feral green ones no longer hidden by a visor.

Jazz's intakes shuttered to a stop as he got his first close, personal look at the mech who could, who _was_ , their god.

"Hello, Jazz," Prime gave a gentle smile stepped into the cell. The distaste for what he was about to do was written obviously on his faceplates. There was no need for him to hide his weaknesses. Even knowing them, Jazz would have no ability to resist the spark that was about to forcefully merge with his. There was no cruelty in his optics. Only nearly infinite sadness and regret.

"We can do this two ways," he continued softly in his deep baritone voice that all but physically caressed the naked protoform. "It can either be tremendously painful for you, and I have no desire to inflict further pain on you, or you can welcome what I have to give and it will, at the very least, not hurt."

Fear was a rare experience for Jazz these orns, but he knew it intimately enough to recognize the flutter in his spark and systems for what it was. It didn't stop his processors though, his innate nature.

"Just what do ya plan ta _do_ in the merge?" he attempted to keep the tremor from his voice. He was a Decepticon, but above that, he was a survivor. Whatever it took to see another orn, he'd do.

Prime gave a thin smile. "What you would expect. I need all of the information you have on the 'Cons, for the sake of the survival of our people. But I also am compelled by Primus to heal sparks that have been damaged by violence, loss, abuse and war. You know that the vast majority of my soldiers are not military mechs. They have neither the sparks nor the programming for the violence they commit, and it does great damage to them at the spark level. It even does damage to our military mechs because they are committing violence against their own brothers. I have yet to merge with spark that was not seriously injured. I can soothe those injuries, and heal many of them. If yours is able to be healed, you can find a place with us if you choose. There is a greater chance of my being able to do that without extinguishing you if you are willing."

Green optics widened. Prime _extinguishing_ his spark was not on his list of possible results. It took a moment longer for the rest of what wasn't expected to sink in.

"Heal?" Jazz focused on the mech, his spark already thrumming and eager to touch the Prime's. His protoform flushed with heat, at least as much as it was able with limited energon. "Who said I needed to be healed?" He felt obliged to demand, even knowing he was as damaged by his actions as Prime implied. But it was old damage, familiar, even a friend. It allowed him be numb to the suffering he caused on the occasion he didn't enjoy inflicting it.

If he didn't have that taste for violence and sadism anymore, he'd be useless to Megatron. What's worse, he'd be useless to his own secretive caste and he knew, personally and intimately, what that meant. It was a far worse fate than being useless to the Decepticon Lord.

Prime regarded Jazz closely, reaching out to gently stroke the recently tortured protoform, allowing his field to caress as well. The faint tremor of the physical form was nothing compared to the way the small mech's EM field latched on to his.

More than a little to Prime's surprise, it wasn't with ill-intent, anger, not even fear. It was raw desire, primal and as wild as the mech was purported to be.

"No one _needs_ be healed. Not everyone wants to be. Before the war, I would never have forced the issue, now I can't afford not to. Without it, you'll never know your true potential, know what you are capable of with a spark that is strong and whole and no longer in pain. You fear very little, Jazz. Are you truly afraid of facing who you are, and who you could be?"

Green optics narrowed. No, he wasn't afraid of that. He thrived on challenge, on the new and different. He was afraid of being rendered helpless with the 'damage' taken from him. It was his strength, that ability to not see people as people when he needed to, to take honest pleasure in their screams and drawing out their deaths as long as possible when it was needed.

"What I could be sounds like a mewling pet at your feet, stripped of what makes me dangerous," Jazz hissed, furious at his own spark's continued betrayal of him.

Prime actually laughed, his hand moving toward the 'Con's spark casing like a moth drawn to flame. He ran a single finger along one of the multifaceted edged. "You _really_ think your spark would leave you weak, Jazz?"

"Yours would," he growled, arching into the touch with a low, strangled sound of want. "What else would you want a Decepticon for?"

"Would you like to find out?" the avatar of Primus asked in a voice that was pure seduction. 

Prime's hand reached behind the exposed spark case and caressed the controls he could use to open it manually if needed. He allowed his own chest armor to slide apart and his unusually large casing to come forward and spiral open, bathing the black protoform in a rainbow of light. Jazz's optics following the movement of the Matrix of Leadership that automatically slid to the side, but was still fully visible, connected to the Prime's spark chamber by millions of microfilaments. 

Whether the 'Con's spark casing opened on its own or because Prime forced it to would be known to those about to merge.

"No!" Jazz squirmed as he cried out, voice sharp with the kind of fear that Eclipse couldn't spark in him but that gentle touch and voice torn from him. 

Panic.

Pure, untempered, from deep down in code far older than the war or the insignia he now wore proudly.

"No," Jazz cried out again, nearly a sob, as he case spiraled open of its own accord, triggered by coding far deeper than any that wanted it closed. "No," he whispered, shuttering his optics tightly. Just as quickly as the fight began, it ended, leaving the minibot's protoform limp in the chains.

While no one else was close enough to feel it, Prime read the EM field tangled with his own as easily as he read his own.

Surrender.

Absolute surrender.

Prime shuttered his optics for a nanoklik, overwhelmed with self-loathing that he would turn this gift of Primus into a means of breaking and turning his enemies.

He didn't _want_ this, not when there was truly no choice on the Jazz's part. Yet his own coding demanded that he put the needs of the many over the desires of a singular mech. He was now both the Lord Prime and the Lord High Protector of his people. He could ill afford to allow his personal distaste stop him from doing what he needed to do for the greater good. 

As his coding demanded, he was overcome with love and desire for the spark that was reaching out to his despite itself. His own began to act outside of his conscious control, sending out tendrils in hundreds of shades and colors to wrap around the shimmering amethyst spark, pulling their coronas together.

"I'm sorry," he whispered just before he fully lost himself in the task at hand.

Information was surrendered with minimal resistance, even though every byte of it echoed with a very different kind of pain that Prime was accustomed to in these events. Jazz's spark turned against his processors, doing much of the work for the Prime, but also funneling all the core-deep reactions of a mech sparked and raised by SpecOps creators into their sub-culture and eventually into their ranks.

He watched, fascinated, as the Con's processors and protocols responded to being presented with a choice between the past and the future, and the smooth shift those protocols began to make in response.

What was the real surprise was to feel confirmation of what Prime had long suspected: this mech had served him well before the war.

Prime latched on to those memories. Jobs well done, lives saved, dangerous enemies subdued without anyone the wiser. He let his appreciation and approval wash through the spark connected to his own and felt the other mech shudder in a mixture of confusion, resentment and pleasure.

Jazz could see clearly, on the level in which there could be no blatant lies, that Prime's objection was not to SpecOps and the work they did. It was to having that work turned against the non-military segments of their population. Against those whose functioning was every bit as precious to Prime, but whom Megatron did not deem worthy of life. Against neutrals who only wished to live their lives, survive, raise their sparklings. Against any who represented weakness to the former Lord High Protector.

~You can use your strength and skills in the service of freedom. Megatron says he wishes freedom, but he steals it from others at every turn. Yes, there will be limits, but far fewer than you would imagine.~

Instead of words came more memories, thousands of them, of what life was like on the streets all over Cybertron before the war. Not what the Prime saw, not even what the mechs he saw would see, but the core cause of the movement that Megatron had taken over.

~We failed them, so many of them,~ Jazz's mind-voice was soft, plaintive, directed at himself as well as Prime, and very much at the rest of the ruling class that had been quick to fall to the rebellion. ~Too many mechs, too little energon, too few controls on sparkling production. My kind lived there, knew them, more than we ever knew your caste.~

Yet behind the accusation was another truth. One about the mech himself. He'd never questioned the violence, the torture, the pain he or his creators caused. He rarely thought about why, so long as he knew his job and was allowed to get results.

That those two reasons, the value of others and the complete lack of regard for them, existed side by side in the small mech's processors didn't seem to bother Jazz in the least. Yet the division, going back to Jazz's earliest vorns, was like a dark, painful chasm running through his spark. A chasm which left him unable to love or trust another at a spark-deep level, which stole from him some of the most intensely novel and joyful experiences he could have. It was a loneliness that was so old Jazz was not even aware of it. 

Prime showed him the chasm, its edges painfully tattered, small parts of Jazz's spark falling into it to be extinguished into nothingness. A chasm that was slowly destroying the spark it ran through.

Jazz shuddered, a ragged moan of pleasure mixed with agony escaping his abused vocalizer.

~Primus sent me, knowing what I was to be,~ Jazz trembled against Prime's spark, both terrified and relieved at the truth of his existence out in the open. ~That I still care about anyone is my failing in the function I was sent to do.~

The statement was met only with compassion, acceptance that this was the truth of what Jazz felt. 

Prime gently led him into other memories. Moments of compassion when he had put a mech out of his misery knowing full well that his creators expected the torture to last for orns. Times when he trusted his instincts that there was nothing of value worth breaking a given mech for. Memories of his time with the 'Cons of energon rations secretly given or damage repaired on a mech who needed it, using the very same skills that made him such an effective saboteur.

No matter how sadistic and self-serving Jazz was, a part of him _always_ cared for others, even if caring simply meant offlining someone quickly whom he knew it would be useless to torture.

~Primus does not _send_ sparks unless they want to come, Jazz. The compassionate part of your spark is every bit as real as the ruthless part. You would not have chosen to come with the intention to destroy the compassionate part of your spark. You likely saw that there was work that sometimes needed to be done, and that you were strong enough to do it, and compassionate enough not allow that violence to dominate you. It is in being taught not to value that part of your strength that you became damaged.~

~Does it really matter?~ Jazz suddenly asked him quietly. ~It's not like I'll ever be outside this cell again. Not alive at any rate. Even you must realize I'm not a mech you can turn loose.~

~It matters a great deal Jazz,~ the deep voice seemed to speak straight through his spark as Prime prepared to take the merge to the next level. 

In place of an explanation, hope was shared. Hope so deep is shook the 'Con to his core. Images ghosted through him of himself a fully trusted part of a team that valued not only his skills, but also his character and compassion. Prime had spark deep hope for a functioning where love did not have to be concealed as weakness, where the contradictions of the spark were accepted as part of functioning rather than the part that was considered weak brutally repressed. Most of all hope that Jazz would freely choose to give his services to Prime and his cause, knowing that a decision to do so, seen at the spark level, would be trusted and honored.

Jazz was still for a very long moment. Thoughts came and went, but none seemed related to anything, much less the subject at hand.

~Why were they left to suffer?~ he finally asked quietly, his mind bringing up all those he had seen before the war that lacked hope, that broke the law because it was the only way to get enough energon to survive. The treatment of those mechs, the 'empties' that no one cared about. ~Why did you bring them when there were already too many?~

The grief that came from Optimus was spark deep. ~I didn't call them into functioning. I call only those who are Allspark-created. The vast majority of the empties are merge-kindled. I can feel them in my spark. Despite what some of the priests and nobles have said, they are as much children of Primus as any other mechs. 

~No matter what I argued, the senate held that providing energon to the empties would only encourage more breeding and exacerbate the problem. That is why I initially sided with Megatron when he came before the senate, advocated for the changes he asked for. It was only when he began to kill innocents, kill the very ones he had sworn to protect that I turned against him.~

Jazz went quiet for another long moment, Prime watching processors work that seemed to be made of a thousand smooth streams of fine oil, slipping into and out of each other, sometimes merging for good, other times splitting into a handful of shades to scatter about again.

Of all the minds he'd seen, it was one of the most intuitive, most fluid. His fascination eventually caught the mech's attention.

~It's that unusual?~ Jazz seemed to cock his head at Prime. Curious and slightly unguarded, yet with a deep sense of distrust just waiting for the merge to end before reasserting itself as best it could in the new environment. ~Hu. Must be an Ops thing.~

~I've merged with Ops mechs before,~ Prime shared several memories of those events. ~I've merged with and healed Eclipse. He hasn't lost his strength in gaining a conscience. You are unique. I've never felt a processor like yours - one based so much on intuition rather than logic. Even our most lateral thinking engineers only mimic what I see in you. It is more a function of your spark than your coding.~

Prime felt his spark becoming impatient with the surface level of the merge. It began sending tendrils deep into the cracked and broken places in Jazz's spark without any conscious signal to do so - tendrils that were more connected with Primus than with the Prime himself. 

He grasped the bound protoform tighter to himself with a moan. ~I can't hold back much longer. This _must_ be done, Jazz, or you will never leave this room alive. Become more than the use others have for your sadism. There is so much more of you, so much more for you to experience. You ... your spark is even stronger than my brother's. What it could _do_ if it were whole!~

~I won't fight you,~ Jazz's mind-voice was barely more than a whisper. Deathly afraid of what it would leave him like, but also prepared to take his own spark if he deemed the results not worth functioning under. Yet over it all was reflexive submission to the living god merging with him. He could deny the Prime nothing like this, and very little of him even wanted to try.

At that surrender Prime's spark no longer held back. The tendrils of Primus-gifted energy that were already wrapping, intertwining, and winding their way into the cracks and chasms of Jazz's spark physically pulled the amethyst light into its own, surrounding it completely. For a brief moment that seemed an eternity, Jazz was connected with his source, and could see his own spark through the eyes of his true creator, not simply the mechs who had paid to have him built.

Reflex from a long lifetime of improving his way through anything and everything recorded every detail, integrating it into his knowledge base before beginning to examine it. As his conscious awareness faded in an out, Jazz's sub-processors ran hot to take in the experience and analyze it, preparing the mech to make full use of it the moment he was coherent once more.

Both mechs drifted for a time in the comfortable loss of self-awareness as Prime's powerful spark physically repaired the other in a wash of warmth that seemed to infused Jazz's entire spark and frame - warmth that would have turned to hot agony had he resisted. 

Their attention slowly turned to certain events in the saboteur's life that had been defining for him, especially early moving speeches from Megatron appealing to the best in the amethyst spark. Prime knew his brother had charisma, it was his spark-right, but it never stopped amazing him just how much the former Lord High Protector could influence mechs with his presence and voice alone.

~Same thing ya do too,~ Jazz murmured softly. ~Woulda joined ya if I'd heard ya first. Ya're both leaders sparked.~

Prime could see at the spark level that the words were true, at least at this moment. Jazz believed them.

~It isn't too late to join me now,~ Optimus said gently, full of the optimism and hope he was named for and the sense that it was never too late for a mech to start new. ~Though you are the highest ranking, you would not be the first that has changed sides and been fully accepted. Everyone in this army whose sparks I have touched understand that mechs can change and are not to be held hostage to their past by others or themselves. I can't promise that all will accept you, but many will if you make the effort to prove yourself.~

~I will _think_ about it,~ Jazz promised as memories flowed into the growing realization and numbness that came as the very ones he had thought to help were first cast aside as useless impediments to Cybertronian greatness, or literally harvested for energon and parts to fuel the growing war machine. Their attention turned to an incident when Jazz had been ordered to torture a neutral in order to find the location of their main haven for sparklings.

Megatron had no more use for the naturally sparked than the nobility and senate had before. He wanted to _control_ who was made, to make sure they were warriors rather than the weak. 

Everything that stood in his way, whether the nobility, the senate, or the empties who had been oppressed by both were labeled as a weakness and blight upon their kind. 

Jazz's only choice had been to become far more numb than he'd ever been before.

Through it all, the small mech faced his past, his choices, with regret but without guilt. He'd done his best at the time and it seemed hardcoded into him not to linger on the past once a lesson was leaned.

Prime was only distantly aware of what his spark was singing about, only that the merge lasted longer than usual, longer than the damage would have implied. All he could do was watch in rapt fascination as Jazz's mental processes flowed. He could almost follow it, or parts of it, as strands of thought gathered and wove together. Beyond active thought, he could still feel Jazz capable of casual disregard for life. Experience told the Prime that was inherent in his function even more than it was for warriors.

More memories flickered about, transitioning faster than Prime could follow, but he _felt_ it the moment the lesson brewing registered in Jazz's consciousness. Felt, rather than understood it was going to be a fundamental moment for the mech, even though the conscious processors refused to act on the new insights yet.

When overload washed through them both, signaling the completion of Prime's work on the spark that was inside his own, it was gentle. More a gently overflowing cube of liquid than a torrent of pleasure bordering on pain.

Prime had little doubt that Jazz wanted something more. He slowly separated his spark from the smaller mech's, far more pleased than he had even anticipated with the results of the merge. The fact that the former 'Con (for he would never be allowed back among their ranks now) had embraced the changes without noticeable fighting was far more than Prime had expected. More than he'd even dared hope for from a ranking enemy officer.

Leaving Jazz's thoughts and spark to themselves, free form his influence, he began to run his fingers along the slender lines and curves of the bare protoform, its living liquid metal visually reacting to each touch with a quiver or ripple of movement. It was as though his hands were trying to sooth the pain inflicted on that same protoform by his own officer with a tenderness that Jazz would never have expected from the enemy commander, or even his own comrades.

It made his intakes hitch as he pressed into the contact, his optics dim as he struggled to focus. Reflex made him try to move, to return the touch, only to remind him that he was still very much immobile.

It took three tries to reboot his vocalizer, and another tense effort to get something other than needy moans to come out.

"L-like all your lovers bound?" Jazz quipped, or at least that was the intent as he squirmed and pressed into the touch of those powerful hands. His sensor net was on fire in the very best way. Memory cores firing as they tried to remember the last time anyone had taken this kind of care with him when there would be no reciprocating and generally failing. Some lovers would, but there was always the implication that he'd return the favor, even if not that night.

Optimus did not bother to answer. He was not interested in a verbal exchange of wit, nor was he sure why he was compelled to give this stunningly compassionate and ruthless mech this particular memory to keep in mind as he contemplated his future.

He simply hummed deep in his systems and let the vibrations travel through the protoform whose weight he was now supporting. The energon bonds lengthened automatically as he lowered Jazz to straddle his lap. He leaned forward and traced the exposed part of the Decepticon's spark casing with his glossa while his fingers explored the malleable black protoform metal on his back, playing with the contractions and expansions of the semi-solid living, growing material that was the basic building block of everything that made up a Mech's frame that wasn't a mod. Jazz had some of the most fascinating protoform material that he had ever touched, and he felt that he could continue stroking him forever.

Soft sounds of pleasure, confusion and desire filtered to his audios as the charge began to build with earnest in the minibot's protoform. There may have been words among them, but they didn't sound like anything that was meant to be language by the time Prime heard them.

It was only a few more moments, less than a breem, and the living metal under Prime's fingers tensed, rippling as the charge exploded outward in an overload that caused Jazz to scream and arch his spark chamber closer to Prime's.

Prime did not dare order him unbound, though he wished he could. His spark-level desire for the mech surpassed anything he'd experienced in a healing merge, whether consensual or non. He was disturbed with himself for bringing Jazz to overload without any word of permission.

And he still didn't let go until he had settled the small mech into what seemed a more comfortable position. The bonds would hold him, as would the cell. Eclipse made sure of that.

"I will come speak with you again soon, Jazz," he said quietly as he stood, his bulk dwarfing the minibot now lying dazed and relaxed on the floor.

A hum, an almost-reply, came from the mech's vocalizer, but before Prime could contemplate much more his optics landed on his SIC and the smirk there. It wasn't his usual one either, but a look that promised there was much mischief coming and Eclipse wasn't going to do a thing to stop it.

Prime raised an optic ridge and the mech who deliberately made himself look like an empty. He stepped out of the cell, motioning Eclipse to follow. 

"I'm certain he can be turned," he said, with no other explanation of his behavior. "He is convinced that had he heard me first, he would have chosen our cause. His greatest fear is being rendered useless by the compassion innate to him. Perhaps you can help convince him otherwise, though compassion isn't your strong suit." 

"I'll give it a try. I can speak to his function here at any rate," Eclipse promised. "Though you'd convert him faster than anything else. Mech _wants_ you, bad."

"I have no qualms with continuing that strategy," Prime said with a wry grin. "The feeling is disturbingly mutual. I was not anticipating it. I thought he was going to fight it."

"So did I," the SIC admitted grimily. "He showed every sign of being one who'd extinguish before submitting. I can't say he'd the first who'd reacted like that to you, but it's unusual for his age and function. We aren't the most respectful mechs out there."

"How well did you know him before the war?" Optimus asked, unapologetically treading into the secret SpecOps world that most politicians had wanted to know little or nothing about so long as it kept _them_ safe.

"No," Eclipse admitted with a small shake of his head and ripple of armor. "Infiltrators, the line he comes from, and spies rarely mixed company. I'm familiar with him more by reputation."

Prime gave a brief nod of understanding. "He was more than a little surprised that he responded the way that he did. He felt betrayed by his own spark. No more torture. I have all the information we need and will share it with you after I've had some recharge. When do you think it will be safe to have him unbound?"

The head of Special Operations made an acknowledging sound before falling silent for a moment.

"With you, anytime you want him," Eclipse decided with a knowing smirk towards his leader, then turned serious. "In general, when he agrees he's no longer a Decepticon without you around."

Optimus chuckled and nodded to his SIC, not bothering to hide the gleam in his optics as he contemplated giving that protoform an oilbath in his own quarters as a reward for good behavior. 

"I'm off to recharge. Alert me if anything changes. I will visit with him again before the orn is out. Schedule a briefing for executive officers only at the end of 2nd watch so we can go through the information I gleaned from his spark and processors and prioritize. In the meantime, I'm transmitting you a list of Jazz's agents. We'll see if any of them remain among us. He is certain that most would have broken cover to escape as soon as I began interrogating his spark."

"Of course," Eclipse nodded again. "Do you want their designations and faces made public, or just my crew hunting them?"

"Keep it quiet, and bring them in alive if possible. They are more loyal to Jazz than they are to Megatron. If he turns, many of them will turn with him."

The Head of SpecOps felt his engine rev sharply in anticipation of such a coup. "Yes sir. We'll find them. Or he will. Is there anything else?"

"Not for now. I will see you at the briefing, or before if needed. Good work, Eclipse. I did not foresee the day we would actually capture and keep this mech."

Giving a nod, Prime excited to go find his berth after what had been an exhausting, but highly satisfying merge.

"I didn't either," the Ops mech murmured and turned to return to the special holding room and cell. Was it possible this was a Jazz-way of defecting? The reaction to Prime was well off anything anticipated. His subdued behavior since also unusual. Three times he'd seen Jazz captured and twice the mech had escaped. But this time, for all the preparations, Eclipse couldn't shake the feeling that his prisoner was still here because Jazz _wanted_ to be here.

He wondered if Jazz _knew_ that was what he wanted. 

Chasing that thought away, he turned to the business at hand. After sending out a series of highly encrypted orders involving Jazz's agents, he reentered the cell and simply watched the armorless mech sitting on the floor, his knees pulled to his chest and arms around them, protecting his spark chamber as best he could. Despite all appearances, he was not in recharge. 

"Well, that didn't go the way I expected it to," Eclipse finally commented wryly.

"Makes three of us," Jazz responded, not bothering to look up or power his optics. It was his voice that was truly unusual; at least for the arrogant mech who even when begging for mercy was defiant. Something had shattered deep inside the mech's code, something that Jazz was still trying to work out.

"I know you have a lot to process right now. If you have any questions about functioning in SpecOps as an Autobot, I will answer them as honestly as I can." Eclipse made the offer easily, as though he were offering to teach a new mech how to operate the energon dispenser rather than speaking with his Decepticon counterpart. 

Jazz did look up this time, though his optics appeared to remain off, his expression an unreadable mess of emotions.

"You'd expect me to take down my old crew," Jazz's voice was quiet, uneasy, but preparing to come to terms with the idea.

"Yes, or turn them if you can," he answered easily. "I would imagine at least some of them are more loyal to you than they are to their faction."

The small mech chuckled humorously. "All of them, if I did my job right. Same as you. Though some hate you mechs more than they're loyal to me." His visor went down again, focused on the floor. "Not sure how many you could actually control. We're all Cons for a reason, ya know. Not much on the whole painless punishment scene."

"Like the painless punishment I gave you?" the brown mech gave a wicked grin. "I won't need to control them if you can. I could care less if they want to be Autobots. I only care that they work to stop Megatron. If there is any idealism left in any of 'em, they know that he has betrayed your cause. 'Sides, I make a lousy Autobot, and you know it. There's far more diversity in this faction than you may credit us for."

Jazz mulled that over for a bit, long enough for Eclipse to turn to leave.

"Out of the war's good enough?" Jazz's voice was barely audible, but Eclipse knew he was working out just how many of his agents would have to die to get himself out of the cell.

Eclipse paused as though contacting Prime, but he didn't really need to. He already knew the answer.

"So long as you can ensure that they really are _out_. Any continued involvement would be on you."

Jazz made an affirmative noise and fell silent, focused inside his own processors once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is trying to come to terms with what's happened to him when he learns even more to think about ... not that he can think very well around Prime.

Jazz suppressed another shiver as his guards eyed him. That look meant bad things would happen when the cameras turned off. The guards weren't afraid of him anymore. They were looking at him with the same violent lust that most Decepticon prisoners faced. His only solace was that what he'd suffered at the hands of his fellow Decepticons was far beyond anything these mechs would be allowed to get away with. What he's endured in training was far beyond that.

Right now, his cell provided far too little protection in his estimation. By now Megatron would know about what had happened. There was no returning to the Decepticons, even if he was fully convinced he wanted to. Even aware that the changes were from what Prime's spark and code did, he couldn't stop the spike of desire that shot through him like a laser every time he thought of the giant mech.

He wanted to feel those hands on him again, wanted to surrender his spark to that incredible ball of energy in the Prime's chest, wanted, so badly, to have his armor and upgrades so he could feel the spike of the Autobot leader stretch his valve wide. He wanted to be the reason the giant mech moaned, to hear his designation as the other overloaded. He wanted to see, experience, Prime taking him warrior to warrior, banishing the last bit of doubt in his processors that defecting was the right choice.

He wanted ... he simply wanted Prime.

The solid energon field flickered and then the door slid open to admit the Autobot SIC looking, as always, like something dragged from the scrap heap. 

Jazz suppressed a cringe as the mech began emptying his subspace pocket as he had in other visits, surely with instruments of torture. But something caused him to look more closely, and to his surprise he saw thin sparkling armor, like what a sparkling would be given. Not heavy enough to damage the delicate soft protoform of a newly kindled mech, but it did provide at least a covering, akin to the clothing some organic species wore. No physical safety for his vulnerable spark chamber and protoform, but at least some manor of psychological safety.

"Stand up and I'll put this on ya, Jazz. While I do that, I can give you some updates on your crew. Then Prime wants to see you, in his quarters. He thought you might appreciate not having to walk naked through the corridors.

Jazz nodded mutely, shocked to his core at the act of kindness, both the sparkling armor and the information. Without a single quip he stood and spread his limbs a bit, making himself as easy to armor as possible. Everything in him said that compliance was his best action at the moment. He was about to be let out of this cell. It made him more vulnerable to those guards and their desires, but it was also a mark of how close he was to walking free. Even unarmed and unarmed, Jazz was a force to be reckoned with.

The same brown hands that had cause him so much torment began to gently place the thin sparkling armor plates on his protoform where millions of microfilaments connected and integrated it with his protoform. 

"One of your femmes and two mechs took their own sparks rather than allowing themselves to be captured. Four mechs and two other femmes are now in our custody. One of those is your creator's second creation."

A quick datasquirt added the designations and physical conditions of all of those in custody and the three that extinguished.

Jazz sucked in a sharp vent of air as the data integrated. He closed his optics briefly for those who extinguished. His SIC, his closest friend, one of the very, very few mechs he trusted, was gone. Deactivated because of his mistake. He kept the physical indicators under tight control, but it hurt to know that one mistake, that one misstep that got him captured, had done so much damage to his network already.

"Third creation," he said.

"Mmm?" Eclipse made a curious sound.

"Ghost is their third creation," he elaborated. "Mismatch was created between us."

The brown hands never stilled, the sign of a practiced torturer; he could take surprise information and never be phase in his actions. "There's no record of Mismatch."

"He was a failure," Jazz responded, his voice flat. "Never made it to mechling."

Eclipse grunted his understanding and filed the fact that information was being volunteered. Granted it was of dubious value outside tormenting the two survivors, but it was of a personal nature and he could already think of a dozen ways to use it to hurt the mech before him and his brother. That made it very valuable intel indeed.

"Will I be allowed to speak with any of them?" Jazz asked very quietly as the last thin plate was put in place.

"Yes, eventually. It will be Prime's decision, based on what he continues to see in your spark. They are not currently being interrogated. Prime feels that any valuable information we would glean we already have from you. Ghost is a damn fine infiltrator, by the way. I never guessed he wasn't one of mine." 

Jazz didn't hide the smile and purr of his engine at that. "That he is. Takes after our creators that way, far more than I did."

Eclipse unsubspaced a final set of mods. It was an interface unit designed to integrate with the sparkling armor. 

He held it up with a half grin.

"You want this?"

Jazz's engine gave a hard rev in answer before the saboteur could nod.

"That's what I thought." The Autobot SIC knelt in front of his counterpart and connected the unit which immediately sent millions of microfilaments deep into Jazz's protoform in order to integrate the sensor-laden spike and valve with the innate sensitivity of his inner, vulnerable liquid metal. 

"Those organics have the right idea when it comes to purely physical interfacing. It is good to be a mimic," Eclipse quipped.

He gave a signal and suddenly the room was full of guards. Then Prime himself came in looking every bit the godform he was.

"Would you like to continue our conversation here or in my quarters, Jazz?"

"Your quarters, Prime," Jazz said quickly, feeling _much_ better with just the thin armor he had on. Interface protocols roared online, talking the last thing he wanted to do with the powerful mech.

Prime gave a searching look to his adversary, one of the most dangerous mechs on either side. He _knew_ from what he had seen in Jazz's spark that the mech would not hurt him, but that didn't mean that walking him through their base would be good for morale. 

Nevertheless he turned toward Eclipse. "Release him from his bonds. He will accompany me back to my quarters. Ironhide will guard from outside."

The big black mech's cannons whined with power and spun at their owner's distress, but Ironhide said nothing as the minibot was released. 

True to survival needs, Jazz held still as he was released and made a point of telegraphing every move to the uneasy guards as he stepped forward. But all that was background to the mech; all Jazz could focus on was the Prime, his energy field, the draw of that potent spark. His own EM field reached out to Prime's, entwining with his lightly on the edges to express his desires.

Prime walked next to him through the corridor as though it were the most naturally thing to bring a vicious killed who had sworn to destroy him to his berth, letting his own field flirt and caress in response to Jazz's overtures. 

He even made small talk, saying casually, "You know, I once brought a lovely blue noble to my berth, one of our top spies whose designation is Mirage. Who would have thought that he was the brother of Megatron's head of SpecOps and a Decepticon infiltrator. I'm amazed now that he didn't take the chance to kill me."

Jazz chuckled, his field flickering brightly with pride. "He probably didn't assess the odds of escaping afterwards as worth the risk. Megatron's a little on the possessive side, if you haven't noticed."

"Perhaps," Prime agreed. "Did he glean any useful information for you from the encounter?"

At that Jazz laughed deeply, his entire frame showing his mirth. "He may be my brother, but he _is_ a noble, created, programmed and raised. He was far too enamored by what was happening to think, much less dig for secrets. I did hear about the encounter in detail though," he continued to snicker. "I'll have to chastise him for understating things."

"Usually I insist on a merge with new soldiers," Prime said, laying his hand on Jazz's back to guide them toward the door to his quarters. "The _only_ reason I didn't was out of respect for his status as an unbonded second creation. I may have to revise that policy. I did hardline with him. He is _good_ Jazz, or you are if you programmed his cover. It was seamless. Not a clue that he wasn't an Autobot noble through and through."

"Thank you," the minibot purred. "Though the praise belongs to our creators. He's been deep cover since his creation. It's seamless because he's lying about very, very little, and it's a second generation lie."

They entered Prime's quarters. Simple and spartan by the standards of what one would have expected of a Prime, but still spacious. The initial space was obviously a more public one, where Prime would meet with visiting dignitaries or his own officers. Well-made furnishings designed for mechs of many frametypes and sizes were arranged for informal gatherings. 

A door slid open leading to Prime's private apartment. "Why didn't I convince your whole family to be Autobots," Prime grumbled before pulling the minibot into his berth room, lifting him up to his chassis and lying back on the berth in one smooth movement.

"I'm the only one ya haveta convince, Prime," Jazz growled hungrily, lifting his arms to play across the smooth glass of the broad chassis under him. "With my creator's deactivation, I head the family now."

Jazz felt the engine underneath him give a deep rev in response, pulling the small mech up for a deep kiss, his glossa delving hungrily into the smaller mouth, exploring the taste of his foe. 

He broke the kiss for a moment, wrapping his broad arms around the thinly armed saboteur and running his hands down his backstruts to his aft, the thin armor allowing the vibrations of the touch to sink into sensitive protoform underneath. "And what would I have to do to convince you? Surely you wouldn't betray your faction just to rub bolts with me?"

Prime could _feel_ the double reaction to his question. No, Jazz wouldn't betray his faction for pleasure, not even from the Prime. The reflex of demands to make, some easily guessed at, like freedom for at least some of his agents. Rich, feral green optics leveled on him after a long moment.

"I'm not giving you a checklist, Prime. Loyalty doesn't work like that. For their lives and freedom, I'll turn my agents from the Decepticons. Whether we work for you is up to you and what we see as independent agents."

There was a low rumble from deep inside of Optimus' chassis that turned into a chuckle. "Good," he growled, blue optics meeting green. "Neither does trust. I am not Megatron. I _do_ trust, and I hope I can gain that and you loyalty if we are both worthy of it." 

"That, we'll just have to wait and see," Jazz murmured and shifted for another kiss.

"But you don't have to do a thing to earn my desire," Prime added seductively as their mouths parted, his large fingers slipping into the loose seams of the sparkling armor and caressing what he found underneath.

"Good," Jazz arched and moaned, pressing into the contact, headless of the damage those hands could do to him. He didn't care. He couldn't care. If Prime chose to damage him there was little he could do to prevent it so worrying about it was a waste of energy. All there was to do was enjoy the moment and be ready to move when it was over if he had to.

Jazz just rather doubted he'd need to. No one here would challenge the Prime here any more than anyone would challenge Megatron in his quarters.

Optimus felt a secret thrill as he pulled Jazz further up so he could mouth at his exposed neck components, humming into him the resonance that could automatically cause some of his lovers to open chest and interface panels at once to him. He felt a secret thrill that it was his captive whom he was taking as his lover, the matrix whispering of ancient times when enslaving his enemy in his berth would have been his sparkright. 

Except he did not want an enemy. What he'd seen in Jazz's spark, the power there, the combination of ruthlessness and compassion called out to him like a drug. An equal, someone who could possibly see him as person and not simply Prime, who with time would not fear him or hold him in awe the way most did.

A core-deep shudder passed through Jazz and he gasped, twisting his frame to offer his lover more of his throat. It was a rush of a very different kind, to have nothing to hide from a berthmate. A rush he could very easily get used to in short order.

He dug soft claws against the glass under him and opened the interface panel. It wasn't _his_ but he had no doubt it'd feel good anyway. The vibration of the chassis under him against his protoform was intoxicating, nearly enough to draw out an overload by itself. That vibration and the heat against his swiftly pressurizing spike drew a whimper of desperation from him.

There wouldn't be any holding back for long.

"Primus Jazz," Optimus murmured, and then his glossa delved greedily into sensitive wiring with a tingling charge. "Oh, you are beautiful even without your own armor."

His large hand reached between them to grasp Jazz's spike even as he pulled Jazz down onto his much larger one, slowly stretching the slick opening to avoid tearing the silicone.

The _sound_ that escaped Jazz was as primal as the mech, and just as captivating to Prime. The sensation of that slick, tight valve stretching around his spike, then rippling as the silver mech actually worked to make it feel even better dragged a growling moan from him.

"Don't need ta be gentle," Jazz ground out, struggling to last at least until a rhythm was established. "Megs couldn't break me, you can't."

"Oh Primus," the large mech groaned again, losing all of his self control, growling deep as thrust hard into the valve his one time brother and Lord High Protector had also taken, unspeakably aroused by the prospect of spilling his fluid into the same tight, _tight_ space. 

With another growl, he pulled all the way out, only to slam back in.

Jazz screamed, his entire body tightening as every servo locked and cable tightened from the torrent of energy spilling through him. It arched his backstrut, threw his head back and tightened his hands into fists against Prime's thick armor.

One, two, three more powerful thrusts and Prime roared his overload, blue sparks traveling up and down their armor as fluid erupted from spike to bathe the sensors inside, meant to cool and prevent overload from melting the circuits of his spike to his lover's valve, but every bit as claiming, erotic, and primitive feeling as the fluids organics spilled into one another to reproduce.

Reflex had him continue to thrust, continue to hold Jazz's hips, as his overload cycled to its panicle. Yet even that blisted out, Prime could feel it in his field and around his spike when Jazz's overload roared into a second peak right on the heals of the first.

His optics shorted out as he groaned, the throbbing of Jazz's valve around his spike pulling yet more fluid from him in little spurts and pleasure. 

"Primus, oh Primus," he whispered into the audio near his mouth as Jazz collapsed forward, gasping for cooling air as badly as Prime.

"Ya can do that to me anytime," Jazz mumbled in a heavily accented Autobot, quite content to lay where he was and never move again.

"Oh Jazz," Optimus sang the designation. His spark and the matrix seemed to press against his chest plates in desire for his captive. It was a dangerous moment. Jazz could have asked anything of him. _Anything_. He couldn't think of him as the mech who had tortured and extinguished Autobot captives. He could only think of the sharp mind and quickfire spark. 

Optimus wanted the silver mech's spark again but knew it was too soon to ask, especially after he had essentially forced a merge and cleansing on his captive. 

He turned them over and bent himself down between Jazz's thighs, stroking his enemy's spike with his glossa before swallowing it.

"Ahhh!" the small mech gasped, then moaned and thrust up into that hot mouth. He reached down to grasp at Prime's helm, reflex at trying to take control, but did little more than make contact as he continued the slow, steady roll of his hips.

Optimus grasped Jazz's hips and held them still, taking the silver interface as far into his intake as he could, massaging the spike's tip with his flexible intake tube. He looked up at the writhing minibot, his optics smiling wickedly as he began to hum around him with his deeply resonant baritone, vibrating him with seductive sound, his lightly charged glossa sending tingling shocks of pleasure into the sensors it touched.

The urge to grab and thrust overrode any pain of bending and crushing the sparkling armor as Jazz continued to move, the soft covering over his fingers pushed back until the protoform showed. Low, needy sounds escaped his vocalizer at the familiar mix of pain and pleasure rushing from his sensornet.

"Oh, Primus," Jazz managed to gasp out, his entire chassis squirming as he struggled to thrust and pull. "Yes! Optimus. Yessss," ended in a hiss as Jazz shuddered, nearing the end of his control.

Optimus continued to restrain him, pushing down harder against the straining mech and growling. He continued to play with the silver spike with intake and glossa, refusing to move his mouth until the mech below him completely lost control. He could feel protoform fingers scraping at his helm, but Jazz didn't have anywhere near the physical strength to do more than indicate how badly he wanted to be in control.

Yet for all the displayed desire, nothing in Jazz's field and voice indicated he was actually _displeased_ at being controlled while he edged closer to the point of no return.

Prime reached down and thrust three of his large fingers into the tight valve, still slick with lubricant and his own transfluid, increasing the resonance of his hum around Jazz's spike. He felt the overload around his fingers first. The ripple and squeeze of that tight, slick valve, then electricity danced between his glossa and the spike he was lavishing before the first shot of transfluid burst from the tip along with a strangled cry of surprise of ecstasy from a crackling vocalizer.

Optimus moaned in appreciation, doing everything in his skill to extend Jazz's overload, pulling his lips along the throbbing spike as he thrust his fingers in several more times and eliciting more delicious noises from the mech underneath him. He finally let go of the silver hip joints so the minibot could thrust in wildly with each eruption of cooling fluid.

When the static-laced cries died down, Jazz slumped down on the berth, panting heavily as all the tension bled out of him along with any desire to resist. Prime collapsed beside him on the berth, one hand playing with Jazz's sensory horns. "So, what do I do with you, Jazz? My officers want you back in that cell. I don't believe you are leaving anytime soon. There is too much you want to understand here. I also saw in your spark that even as talented as my SIC is, you could escape if you wished to."

"I could," Jazz acknowledged, remarkably devoid of cockiness as he really thought about the question. "Not easily, I'll give Eclipse that much. Will you accept my spark as collateral for my agent's good behavior?"

"Yes," Prime agreed readily. "I felt what they mean to you. I know that those that didn't make it are deep losses. I'm going to end up sending Prowl offline to medbay when I tell them, but I intend to set all of you up in my guest quarters. You will all be under loose house arrest for propriety's sake, but given a lot of latitude within that, until you either decide to take the Autobot oath, or swear neutrality. I _will_ need to merge with each of them before I release them to you. I hope you understand."

Jazz nodded slightly. "I do. It's better than any of us could have expected. It'll go easier if I can speak to each before you merge with them. At least with most of them," he murmured. "Nightstalker is going to be furious with me."

"I'll make sure you get a chance to speak with each of them before I merge with them. I'm assuming you'd like to see Mirage ... I mean Ghost first?"

Jazz smiled up at him, the distress of what he was about to do picking at his processors more each nanoklik. "Yes. He'll be the most valuable to you, if he accepts you. Most of his contacts won't be affected by what side he's on. He could bring much of the nobility back under your sway."

Optimus hummed in agreement, letting his fingers slide down to Jazz's chest, laying a hand almost protectively over his spark. 

"Can I help you with your anxiety and loss, Jazz? I can't take it away, but can ease it for you. You don't have to go to them this orn, either. You can recharge here first, or in the guest rooms. It is up to you."

"Loss should hurt," he looked at the Prime a little oddly. "We were going to bond when this mission was over, Megatron's rules be damned." Jazz shook his head and began to stand, his interface panel screeching an objection to the damage done to his sparkling armor as he tried to close it. "I won't leave them in cells and uncertain any longer than required."

"I sincerely mourn your loss. I wish Nitrate had not extinguished her spark. I wish my agents had been able to convince her or at least subdue her." Optimus said, likewise standing with a groan of protesting joints and hydraulics. He pulled several soft cloths from subspace to clean up the fluids and rub off the paint scrapes. Without bothering to offer, he began to buff the red and blue scuffs off of Jazz's sparkling armor while handing a second cloth to Jazz to attend to the fluids of interfacing. 

"Yeah, well, I kinda knew it would happen if she didn't escape and she probably wouldn't escape without me," Jazz murmured as he tended to his appearance and some of Prime's. "Despite the report, she didn't take her own spark. She wouldn't have. She just wouldn't have permitted herself to be subdued either. She always intended to go out in a blaze and take as many to the Pit with her as she could."

Despite the words, Prime only heard the grief, pain, pride and love that was behind them. It didn't matter which version of events was correct in the end. The mech was gone and Jazz would believe what he needed to to accept it.

"I would worry about your spark if you weren't hurting. It is ... a Primus-given compulsion for me. Not taking away pain, but helping sparks to accept loss and heal from it. The legends say that when our population was only the size of a small base, Prima merged with any mecha on Cybertron who requested it of her. The offer is still there if you come to a point where you wish for it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jazz nodded, his voice modulated to display no reaction to the loss.

Yet Prime could still hear it, see and feel it. It made him all the more convinced that Jazz was swayable with the truth and as sane as any Ops mech could be. It was amazing to him that such a damaged spark would contemplate bonding, much less desire it so much that he'd go against Megatron for it. It made him ache all the more for the little spitfire, but it made him back off mentally. It was one thing to merge for cleansing, or a quick pleasure when the hurting mech clearly wanted it, but it was wrong on a fundamental level to court a mech so soon after such a loss.

When they exited from his quarters, Ironhide followed several paces behind, a silent sentry. It was impossible to tell if he approved of Prime's actions or not, but Jazz intuitively thought that he did, and it surprised him. 

They made their way through the base, passing no one on their way. Prime had obviously sent word ahead to clear the corridors. They came to the brig where Eclipse was just exiting one of the isolation cells. 

"I've brought him online and he is ready to speak with you, Prime," the brown mech casually reported. 

"Jazz will speak with him first," Prime said in a tone that allowed no argument, not that Eclipse would offer one. He was giving his Decepticon counterpart a measured look with a slight twitch at the corner of his lips. 

The door slid open to reveal a slender and pristine-looking protoform sitting straight on the berth, the picture of elegance and pride despite his current condition. 

The door slid shut leaving Jazz and the mech known to the Autobots as Mirage with a semblance of privacy, even though they knew every word would and movement would be observed and likely recorded.

"Hay, bro," Jazz spoke quietly, keeping rather pointedly out of arms reach as his brother and subordinate. "Here's the deal. Prime's going to merge with you, a healing merge. There won't be many secrets left for you when he's done. Nitrate, Quicksilver and Sting are gone. I would have been labeled a traitor the moment the alarms went off."

"Which leaves myself as the next in command," Ghost spoke calmly, his golden optics locked on his creator's first creation's green ones.

"Yes," Jazz nodded. "Unless Soundwave takes over, which seems more likely. You never were around much, after all."

"Who else was captured?"

Jazz vented a small sound. "Vagrant, Nightstalker, Ripcord, Razzle and Shadow. The rest are still loose, though I'm not sure for how long."

"They will execute me," Ghost said flatly, showing no emotion. "I'm an Autobot traitor. I took their oath, I've been in Prime's berth. I'm as good as dead."

Jazz paused at that, conflict between what was _smart_ and what was _Prime_ chasing around his processors.

"It would be smart," he admitted. "I doubt Prime will authorize it. He knows too much about me now not to see the risks. I wouldn't take it well, and right now, I don't even have Megatron to keep us in check."

Ghost met his brother's optics, looking as lost as Jazz had ever seen the talented infiltrator. 'Mirage' was so good at being an Autobot that Jazz often wondered how often he forgot that he wasn't. 

"How bad was it ... the merge?" asked the cultured voice with a tone of hopeless resignation.

"If you don't fight it, it's ... not bad," he reassured his younger brother as best he could. "Unsettling as the Pit, being that open and unshielded, but he's gentler in it than most Cons are when friendly."

"He doesn't have to be anything other than gentle," Ghost said. "I'm fragged whether he is gentle or not."

Jazz vented slightly and took the step to close the distance between them, closing a hand, his sparkling armor's fingers still damaged, around his brother's shoulder. "Where there's function, there's hope, Bro," he tried to drag Ghost from his funk. "You know I'll do what I can to keep all of us functioning."

The slender protoform wrapped his unprotected arms around Jazz's waist and let out something very close to a sob. He pulled him down to sit on the berth and desperately kissed him as though he were saying goodbye rather than seeing the first creation for the first time in vorns of deep cover.

Despite his surprise, Jazz accepted the kiss, taking it as deeply as Ghost desired as he held the taller but thinner protoform comfortingly. His hands stroke Ghost's back, trying to sooth him with whispered soft clicks, chirrs and whirrs in their native dialect of SpecOps and touch.

The contact seemed to help the younger mech pull himself together. He broke the kiss and straightened his posture, looking once again the Swift Sky noble he was despite his lack of armor. 

"Somehow, I should have known you would come out of this even better situated than you were before. I knew when I wasn't tortured that they had to be courting you."

Jazz chuckled softly and rested his helm against Ghost's. "True, though Prime wrote it off as there being little point, given he'd already downloaded pretty much everything I knew. I'm sorry, Bro," he turned serious. "I wanted to resist, to not give anything up, but I couldn't fight his spark. I got us in this mess, I'm working to get us all out of it."

"You can't resist Prime's spark, Jazz. I'm glad you didn't fight it. Survival is what is important." Ghost held his brother tighter and then released him. "On the bright side, I get to spend some time with you now. I've been deep cover here for so long I was beginning to forget who I am."

He was already sitting straighter, more like the proud, arrogant noble Jazz knew.

It made Jazz smile and his protoform engine hum happily. "Ready to face his spark?" he asked softly with a chaste kiss.

"As ready as I can be," he replied softly, looking up at the monitors he knew were catching their every word and movement. 

Jazz pressed their forehelms together briefly, then stood. "It'll be okay. Just let go; let him do what he wants."

The door to the cell opened, admitting only the Prime, who took in the pair with deep, knowing optics before focusing on Jazz. "You may stay, if you both wish it."

"Go, Jazz," Ghost said with a quiet poise. "I've betrayed my Prime, and there are things I need to say to him alone."

Prime nodded his understanding. "Eclipse will take you to speak with some of your other agents, Jazz."

There was a fractional hesitation on Jazz's part, a desire to pull rank, both in Ops and family, to remain and protect his brother, but it was gone almost as fast as it appeared and he slipped out of the cell with the natural grace that was his sparkright.

When the door closed once more, Prime focused on the prisoner before him. The familiar poise and stance, known from the halls, meetings and berth, now made odd knowing that it had been a Decepticon the entire time.

"Do you wish to speak before we merge?" Prime sat on the berth, allowing the noble some space for now. There was no avoiding what was to come, so there was no need to hurry.

Ghost sank prostrate to the floor at Prime's feet before he spoke a word. "My spark is forfeit for my crimes, my Lord Prime. If you do not take it, Jazz surely will once he learns what I've done."

"Then it is a secret I will keep from him," he responded, his deep baritone resonating through the slender frame. "No one among you will be extinguished for crimes committed before this orn."

The slender, elegant mech unlocked his chestplates and came to his knees, his entire frame shaking from fear and desire. His spark chamber immediately spiraled open to reveal the brilliant blue and white spark that matched his frame almost perfectly. Despite everything, Ghost presented himself in ritual fealty to his Lord in ancient motions that spoke volumes of his intent. His spark belonged to Prime, for Primus' given form to do with as he wished.

It was a better response than Optimus had ever dared hope for from the mech so critical to keeping his sway over Jazz.

"Stand and come here," Prime barely needed to motion to his lap as he opened his chest plates and set in motion the healing protocols.

Ghost straddled Prime's lap, pressing his vulnerable protoform into the hard armor, the pain helping him to focus on bringing his spark into the range of Prime's own massive orb of brilliant colors rather than his fear.

The first touch of tendrils and Ghost moaned at the pleasure washing through him from his spark. It wasn't his first merge, but it had never been like this before.

~What have you done, my lovely noble, that you fear your brother's wrath?~ Prime questioned him gently, sending a wave of affection and desire across the growing link.

A static sob escaped Ghost as he directed Prime to the memories. His creators had done too good a job making him the perfect, obedient second creation. When ordered to infiltrate the Autobots, his core programming had gone into complete turmoil as he was faced with the agonizing choice of fealty to his Prime or to his function and family.

The fealty had never been to the Decepticons. That was clear. But he was as instrument of whomever the head of his family chose him to serve. 

While some towerlings found it pathetically easy to denounce their Prime for the sake of survival, Ghost's noble coding ran true. He _belonged_ to the Prime, no matter how much he might personally disagree with some of the decisions the rulers of Cybertron had made.

He learned quickly enough that he and his family had chosen the wrong side, had been taken in by Megatron in a way SpecOps mechs never should be. He fed Jazz enough information to raise his own doubts, always carefully enough not to arouse suspicion.

So he had set to deliberately rewriting his own code, allowing him to serve Prime first and Jazz second, passing enough information to be an effective agent and avoid raising his brother's suspicions, knowing he cost Autobot lives, but attempting to offset every betrayal with information far more valuable to his Lord that he could only glean while Jazz still thought him a loyal agent. 

He kept hoping Jazz would defect, that his double life could end, but as Jazz prepared to bond with Nitrate, he knew that his brother would _never_ come over. Nitrate would never have allowed herself to. Her hatred of the Autobots was personal. She wasn't simply a loyal SpecOps agent using her skill for whomever paid her. She was a truly a Decepticon, and bonded to her, Jazz would never leave, no matter his doubts. 

So he did what he had to do. He fed information to Eclipse via several other agents about an operation that Jazz was involved in personally, and orchestrated his brother's capture.

He felt the shock spiral outwards from his Prime, but shock flavored with great joy and pride in the choices he'd made.

~I will protect you from your brother if need be,~ Prime rumbled between them, a promise given as Lord to subject in the language only a few still understood. It was an oath as binding on the Prime as Ghost's fidelity was to his Lord Prime. ~You are an amazing being, Ghost. You should not fear those you care for so deeply. Did anyone know your true loyalties?~

~No one knows. Eclipse may suspect, especially now. Jazz doesn't mess up. If I had admitted to being a 'Con, if my cover had been blown, Jazz would have found out from one of the others in deep cover. I had to maintain the charade if I ever wanted to bring him over with me.~ 

Ghost basked in the acceptance and pride from his Lord, in sharp contrast to the churning of his spark at his betrayal that cost the head of his family his intended sparkmate. 

To divide the loyalties of a second creation between Prime and clade was pure cruelty, and Ghost had been living this cruelty for vorns. His spark needed what Prime could give him, had wanted it for so long, though nothing would heal him completely other than the forgiveness of his elder, and he could not fathom Jazz giving that even if he were to defect.

~Your brother may surprise you,~ Prime rumbled gently and deepened the merge, driven by the open grief wanting closure to move quickly. ~I have met his spark. He values you more than his intended. You are clade. His junior. He will be very angry if he finds out soon, but I have no doubt he will forgive you once he completes grieving Nitrate's end.~

Ghost's spark latched on to that hope, clung to it and literally pulled itself further into the massive spark it was touching, offering everything he was for Prime to know, a complete surrender of all he was. Whatever Prime wanted was his by sparkright, and Ghost would accept whatever Prime wished to do with his spark, whatever healing he could offer. The surrender was _right_ on the deepest level of his spark, no matter how much conflict his coding put him in.

~You have but one more duty to your brother for me,~ Prime wrapped the young noble in his spark and his arms, soothing and offering as much acceptance, approval and love as the other could take. ~He will listen to you, as his most trusted agent knowledgeable in orn to orn Autobot functioning and facts. You know him well. You know what can sway him now that his intended is no longer blocking his choices, what to tell him, show him, that he believes my cause is the right one to back. I do not want you to expose yourself to his wrath before it is time Ghost, but he will trust your opinion over the others should they wish to reject my offer.~

Prime's order was met with complete acceptance, proud to serve him with an undivided spark. His unarmored, delicate hands clung to Prime's armor, igniting the large mech's desires once more as the merge plunged deeper and he found amazingly little damage. Most of it caused by the conflict of trying to serve two masters with very different agendas.

~You are an amazing mech, Ghost. One I would be proud to take as my consort when the war is over, should your brother agree,~ Prime murmured in absolute honesty. As intensely as he responded to the elder as an equal, he responded to the younger as a mate.

The words themselves, spoken directly into his spark, were enough to send him into the most powerful spark overload he had ever experienced. No words were spoken in response, but Ghost's spark was overflowing with the truth that he belonged to his Prime, for whatever his Prime wished.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starting with the easiest mech has disadvantages, and the Autobot guards are about to get an optic full of what 'SpecOps discipline' actually means.

Nightstalker lay flat on her berth in solitary confinement. The fact that she even had a berth annoyed her as just about everything else about the Autobots did. They were weak, and as an infiltrator, she had been surrounded by the weakness for far too long.

They hadn't even bothered to interrogate her, which told her that Jazz had spilled everything. He hadn't fought spark interrogation, hadn't given up his spark to protect their secrets. She had always thought he was so strong, and now she was comfortable in the Autobot brig, knowing that he wasn't.

Not that she was much stronger. She had allowed herself to be taken rather than fighting to the end. She wasn't much of a Decepticon either, the femme thought bitterly.

She heard the guards approaching not long after another alarm went off in the back of her processors of Ghost's spark-interrogation. They didn't bother her, they were nothing. The whisper-quiet steps of the two minibots with them was another matter and she felt a small jolt of fear. Eclipse, no doubt, and someone else that walked like their kind. Maybe a youngling, here to learn from the master. It wasn't as if she had any value as a prisoner that a youngling could mess up.

She vented and shuttered her optics, feigning recharge as the door slid open. She reflexively scanned for a spark signature even though her scanners and comms were offline.

"Night," the voice was too intimate, too familiar, even after all the vorns under cover. "I know you're faking."

"You're not even shackled," she replied frostily, sitting up to look him over. "They even gave you some armor. You must really be useful to them. Tell me, did you really get captured, or did you defect?"

"If I'd defected, I'd still have _my_ armor and you'd have been given orders, not captured," he replied, stepping fully into the small cell for the door to close and lock behind him. "Or have you forgotten who you really answer to?" he asked, leaning casually against the far wall as if he was safe this close to her.

"I answer to Megatron's head of SpecOps, who would be Ghost now, but since I'm fairly certain he'd be extinguished if he showed up to take command, I guess I answer to Soundwave." She crossed her arms, her blue optics staring at his feral green ones.

There was no missing, or mistaking, the flicker of betrayal that crossed his entire manner before it settled into the cold fury that usually meant whoever he was looking at would be lucky to be deactivated before he got bored with them.

"Then denounce your clade formally, Nightstalker," Jazz growled low and angry. "Since you've forgotten who and what you really are."

Nightstalker's eyes flashed red as she stood and took a step toward the silver mech. "Would you be saying the same thing to Nitrate, Jazz? Because she would be every bit as angry. Did you fight it at all when they took her position from your spark?"

His features softened briefly and a small vent escaped him. "That answers my next question, whether you've ever been close to Prime. No, by the time he got that far I'd stopped even pretending to fight. There's no fighting that spark, and you'll learn that soon enough. Nitrate's gone. So are Quicksilver and Sting. Vagrant, Ripcord, Razzle and Shadow are waiting their turn with Prime, though they don't know it yet. I'm sure you already felt the notice of Ghost's fate."

All the fight seemed to leave the femme as she sat down on the berth, her posture completely defeated. 

"I thought you'd die before you gave her up, Jazz. I thought you'd die before you gave any of us up. Why? Are kill protocols only for the rest of us?"

"So did I, until _his_ spark touched mine," Jazz's voice was quiet, betraying his own continued struggles with what he'd done and was still doing. "I have the protocols, same as everyone. They don't trigger as easily as you seem to think. This is how it's going to work, Nightstalker. You'll submit to Prime. You don't know anything he hasn't already learned. You'll be turned loose, restricted to base. You will not cause any damage to the Autobots while we're here."

"And if I refuse? What point is there in him interrogating my spark if he already knows everything? I don't want _him_ touching me, changing me."

Jazz's gaze hardened. "The choice is between submitting to my orders and submitting to the price of refusing them, _if_ Prime gives you that choice. He's well aware of what will happen to you if he doesn't find the will to force you to change your processors."

"You have no right to give me orders any longer, Jazz. You betrayed our clade, you betrayed the 'Cons by allowing yourself to be captured and interrogated in the first place. This has become about saving your own spark, and I won't follow a coward," she spat back at him.

"Then take what you claim I'm no longer fit to the end," Jazz shifted away from the wall and rolled his fingers to beckon her forward. "Betrayed the Cons, yes. Betrayed my clade, no. We're on the wrong side of this war and I'm going to see to fixing that mistake with the lest damage to our clade as possible."

"If we were on the wrong side, it is because you led us there," she hissed, launching herself at him, her soft protoform colliding with his sparkling armor, ripping into her with a spray of energon. She didn't care. Like a thing gone mad, she ripped at the thin armor plates over his spark, shredding her armorless fingers in the process.

"I did," he agreed as he grabbed her wrists, twisted to get them both in one hand and used his greater mass and strength to slam her into the berth before stepping back to begin removing armor.

"At least give me the courtesy of losing the armor first," he snapped, insisting, even now, that the battle be according to clade law like it would actually matter, like the rest of the clade was watching.

Nightstalker followed his every movement as the sparkling armor was removed. When the last plate dropped to the ground, she launched herself at him again with a shriek of rage, going straight for the wires around his spark casing.

He allowed her to connect and rip into the sensitive, vital circuitry. Only after she brought her other hand into play did he make any effort to even block her. Accepting the pain and damage near his spark as if it were nothing as he slid away, leaving her with wires dangling from her fingertips but gripping nothing but air.

"Slag you, fight me!" she screamed, launching herself at him again, her hands clawing at his optics only to find her demand met as he caught her square in the middle with a roundhouse kick backed by advanced hydraulics and a long functioning of fascination with all things violent.

"As you wish, Nightstalker," he rumbled low and calmly. "The beating ends when you stop."

With an emotionless smile, she took the stance he had taught her, going on the offensive with a double side kick aimed right at Jazz's sensitive spark casing.

He blocked it with his forearm, then grabbed and twisted to force her to the floor. "You're telegraphing worse than a sparkling. Focus on not letting me know what's going to come at me."

A low growl came from her engine as her mentor shamed her by turning the challenge into a lesson. She stood again and gave a mocking bow before taking her stance, this time waiting for him to go on the offensive. 

He waited the traditional timing for a training match and suddenly she was on the berth, his weight pinning her down, both hands under his control, his knee spreading her legs in an entirely too familiar move from darker times among both Autobots and Decepticons.

"Yield?" he asked mildly.

Her optics flashed at him furiously, but there was no mistaking the tremor that went through her frame, a horrible mixture of fear, shame and desire. "And if I don't, what is next? Are you going to rape me to make me obey, Jazz?"

A sad look cross his features briefly. "We both know that's going to happen, 'seas. Hardline and sparks come next. Losing is being raped. We both know I'm older, stronger and more skilled."

She shuttered her optics. "Get on with it, then."

With a soft kiss to her forehelm, he quickly connected their systems and did something she wasn't expecting. He invited her in.

She tentatively felt her way inside his recent memories that he opened to her, his merge with Prime first and foremost, how the sheer power and compassion of that spark was irresistible. How Prime was giving them the freedom to decide whether or not to trust and serve him based on their experiences, that they still had the option of going neutral.

~Yes, I lead us wrong,~ Jazz told her, allowing her to experience his anger, grief and self-hatred the revelation had created. ~I did not do so alone,~ he opened up memories of how he'd come to chose as he had. What Nitrate had told him, what Megatron had shown him when they merged, what Prime had shown him.

Then what he intended to do once his clade was out of their cells and once more able to move freely.

~I love her, 'seas. I wanted her to be happy, be right. I was willing to be lax in my duties for her.~

~I've been an infiltrator here for vorns, Jazz. These Autobots ... they are moralistic, hypocritical, self righteous and weak. The only one I have an ounce of respect for is Eclipse because he is one of us. Perhaps Prime is worthy of following, but to be part of the Autobots?~

~I never agreed we would be Autobots,~ he said firmly, sharing her doubts. ~I agreed that we would not support the Decepticons, no more. The Autobots hold the keys, so for now we must play nice with them. After all you've been through, surly this is not the most horrible thing you've done to survive and be free?~

~No,~ she admitted quietly, ~It could be far worse.~ 

Despite herself, her systems were responding to the sheer exquisite intimacy of protoform to protoform contact, and the power of her mentor's processors connected to her own. Processors that by the right of rank and clade could have swept in and reprogrammed her to obedience. Instead, he was offering her the chance to see and feel what he had, to make up her own mind. Something a Decepticon would never do, and she had to admit she was thankful. 

~You know, for a rape, this ain't half bad, boss.~

He chuckled softly, a level of tension slipping away from both protoform and processors. ~Because you're being reasonable, 'seas. You're young and hurting, not truly rebellious. Some won't be so easy to convince. Some will force me to extinguish them. I'm glad you aren't among them.~

~Can you stay, when he comes?~ she asked quietly, sounding once again the youngling Nitrate had sent to Jazz for training before the war, before factions, when there had only been their secretive caste with its powerful yet invisible clades. 

~Yes,~ he responded instantly and honestly. ~Ghost asked me to leave. I would not have otherwise. Your desire, act on it?~ he asked, increasingly aware of both their systems response to the intimacy of the situation.

He felt a tremble pass through her frame. ~Let me feel your strength. The thought of you as weak, giving away Nitrate's position ... it nearly broke me, like I couldn't trust anything any longer. Being a 'Con takes away enough of that, losing my trust in clade...~ she let the words drift off, despair warring with desire.

Understanding drifted back before she felt him pin her with his full weight as he invade her processors. While both assaults had the potential to do incredible harm given who he was, it was only to give her what she needed; a full show of his strength, his dedication, his will ... what gave him the _right_ to command.

Desire rocked through her fragile, unarmored form, ripping a deep moan from her. The only times she had been in her protoform with her mentor were when he had taught her some of the finer point of torture. Now she was wrapping her arms and legs around his slightly larger frame, her fragile and sensitive inner form lit up with blue sparks of the growing charge. 

But it was his mind that truly made him dangerous, which could sweep her into overload with simply a command. As strong as her firewalls were, they were swept away like some silken decoration adorning her processors.

He pressed a kiss to her mouth that she responded to eagerly.

~Open,~ the softly worded command would allow her to resist if she wanted to badly enough. Otherwise, it was as if she'd given the order to her own systems.

With a whimper of both need and fear, her partially exposed spark chamber was fully revealed as her protoform chest parted. Her blue-green spark reflected off the obsidian of their unarmored forms. Even as her chamber spiraled open, tendrils of light reached and retreated from Jazz's more powerful amethyst. 

The first touch was nothing short of ecstasy, the powerful spark of her lord and master washing away everything that wasn't devotion to him and bliss as his attentions. As much as she wanted this to last forever, the overload came quick and hard, with separation just as quickly.

"Remember, cooperate with Prime when he comes," Jazz murmured into her audio as he drew back and sat on the berth next to her.

Prime must have been waiting just outside for Jazz to finish bringing his soldier back in line. He entered, followed by Eclipse who gave Jazz a look that spoke volumes. For her part, Nightstalker could barely find it in herself to sit up, much less properly salute the mech whom she had pretended to serve. 

"Nightstalker, would you prefer that your commanding officer be present during our merge?" He addressed her gently.

"She wants me to stay," Jazz answered when she appeared to be struggling to vocalize.

Prime nodded and watched as Jazz stood and stepped away from the berth to take a place next to Eclipse, watching intently as he began to put his sparkling armor back on.

"You have a very intimate manner with your soldiers," Eclipse murmured as Prime spoke softly to Nightstalker who was answering all of his questions with curt yes or no replies.

"Perhaps," he replied just as quietly. "We were nobles, for the most part. They're a very touchy-feely group when it comes to authority. It works for us."

They quietly observed as Nightstalker climbed onto Prime's lap like something completely defeated. Her usual fire had simply vanished. She opened her chestplates and tensed, clearly expecting an excruciating experience.

"It seems to work for Prime too," Jazz said as he watched the giant sooth her much as he had. Hands stroking her protoform lightly as he opened his chest and his spark reached out for hers. "He really is ... different. What brought you to the Autobots?"

"My clade worked among the empties, pit mechs, and scavengers, those of the smelting pits and energon mines," Eclipse began softly as they watched Prime's spark nearly absorb the blue-green of Jazz's operative. "Megatron came in like some sort of angel of light, offering salvation. I only saw the masses casting off one set of masters for another who would dispose of them when they were of no more use."

Nightstalker's whole frame began to shake, tiny sounds escaping her vocal processors clearly not pain. 

"A lot of accidental and not-so-accidental spark reproduction happened there, frames cobbled together from other's scrap. Life wants to go on, no matter how horrid the circumstances, lack of access to the Allspark be damned. The sparklings and younglings, as well as many others began disappearing. I had the appearance of a cobbled together youngling and allowed myself to be taken, then hid to see what was happening. I can disappear as well as your Ghost when I want to. They were reformatted into adult frames, reprogrammed into warriors with mindless obedience. They were his cannon fodder. Others ... the adults ... were stripped down to barely more than a chamber and a spark. Breeders for an experiment in spark production and splitting by a scientist named Shockwave. If the Senate and Prime would not allow Megatron to create a military the size he insisted we needed, he would do it himself.

"The new sparks ... something was not right with them. They were little more than drones. I saw Megatron for what he was. He wasn't salvation for the masses. He cared nothing for them. It was only about power. I always found it ironic that so many of our caste who hid among the nobility ended up with Megatron, while I and mine went to Prime, when we were the ones Megatron was promising to free. Prime wants to make things right. It is in his spark. He feels every spark, loves every spark. Megatron cares about us as a race, about our greatness upholding his own, but he does not care about the individuals who make up that race."

Jazz nodded, absorbing the few new bits of information and the context. A low, resigned sigh was vented as he pieced together his own path to the Decepticons, a path laid by one mech, a mech he trusted with his spark and clade. A bitter lesson to accept, painful in a way that torture had never been, never could be. He'd been blinded by emotion, blinded in the same way Prime blinded him. At least with Prime, it was a blindness that was more inherent to having a spark.

"How much do you know about Nitrate's past?" Jazz barely murmured, preparing to bare his most criminal faults to a mech that in an odd way, he trusted to understand. A fellow clade leader. Someone who would know the full implications of what he was admitting to; who would grasp the unique grief in being a clade leader who lead his clade wrong and was trying to correct it. "Our plans?"

"I know that Prime and Megatron originally recruited her to expose the corruption of the Council and Senate to attempt to force reform. She felt betrayed when Prime would not follow Megatron from reform to all out revolution. Prime told me that you were planning to bond," Eclipse replied evenly, his optics still focused on Prime and Nightstalker despite his attention being completely on the uneasy, psychologically battered mech beside him.

Jazz nodded faintly. "I believed her too much," he murmured shamefully, optics on the same scene as Eclipse while his attention was on the other clade leader. "How do you think around him?" he motioned with his chin towards Prime.

"Prime wants to be surrounded by mechs who will disagree with him, argue with him, help him find the best possible solutions and even go around him when his core programming will not allow a certain course of action that is clearly the better of two evils. I can think around him because he has commanded me to do so. It _is_ impossible to resist his spark, but fortunately, he doesn't use that strength to eliminate difference. His command staff meetings are heated, and he will simply listen. When he gives his opinion, he is careful to do so in such away that it does not discourage dissent."

Nightstalker keened in overload, and Optimus gathered her to him, lying down on a berth far too small and holding the slender femme, less than half of his own height as she continued to shake and keen.

Jazz cocked his head. "Did I give such a show?"

Eclipse chuckled. "Yours was far more intense. It is not always as pleasurable as what you experienced and what Nightstalker clearly has. Sparks that resist too much simply collapse. It amounts to a choice. Prime could force them to remain functioning, but there are some that simply cannot face what he gives."

"I don't doubt it," Jazz agreed, watching as his agent calmed down, her intakes hiccupping as she continued to shiver in Prime's gentle embrace. He murmured wordlessly to himself and stepped to the berth to stroke her backstrut lightly, his EM field reaching out to sooth her.

"She will be alright," Prime said softly, "as will your brother, Jazz. She has much to process, but her spark is settled enough to allow her to make a decision based of evidence rather than emotion. Nitrate was right about some things," he admitted, "and others we will never know. If we could turn back the vorns, we would all certainly do some things differently, but living in regret does little to serve the present."

"No, only learning from it," Jazz said quietly. "She was of Nitrate's clade, not mine, originally. She's lost more than most of us here. Will she be freed?"

"You have won back her obedience. I have little concern that she or Ghost will do any harm. I am more concerned, to be honest, about the actions and words of my own soldiers. If I kept them in custody, it would be for their own safety. They are the ones who are the familiar faces around here, with friends, lovers, and cadre mates who will feel betrayed. You and the rest of your operatives that we have captured were not infiltrators."

Jazz nodded thoughtfully. "Will we be given our armor back, when we're under house arrest?"

Prime nodded in assent. "Some of my officers will complain about it bitterly, but for your own safety they must, because I cannot watch every soldier every klik of the orn. Politically it would be better to keep you all in sparkling armor, but I will not risk one of you coming to harm from misguided revenge."

"Then we will protect them," Jazz said evenly, as firmly and resistant as he could manage in face of the mech before him. "I need them, they _know_ the Autobots in a way the rest of us don't." He paused, stroking Nightstalker's back as she cooled and calmed for the most part. "I'm not going to make the same mistake twice."

"You are wise. It is the same reason I make sure that I have a group of strong officers who will incessantly disagree with me and with one another, not matter how much processor ache it causes. All of your team will be with you unless I see something compelling in their spark that will not allow it."

Jazz inclined his head in acceptance. "The difficult ones first or last?"

"I am assuming that Nightstalker was not actually one of the difficult ones," Prime said, running an affectionate hand over her recharging protoform. 

"No, merely one of the more emotional ones. She's young and I don't know her that well, since she's been away for much of the war," Jazz said quietly. "Vagrant is the one I'm not honestly sure about. He's been trying for my position for some time and he's nearly good enough to claim it."

"I think we had best see to those who are more difficult. How do you propose we handle it?" Prime regarded Jazz with an almost paternal concern. "While I have no doubt of your abilities, I would not risk your functioning simply to bring your mech in line to merge with me. I have no qualms about being the one to subdue him, as I have no clade traditions demanding I remove my armor before I do so."

"Unless you extinguish his spark, it won't change that I have to face him and he will challenge me," Jazz shook his head. "Now, more than ever, he _should_ challenge me. Every one of them should."

"True, they must trust you as their leader, and that way I will only need to regularly merge with one of you while you make your decisions," Prime said thoughtfully. "But I will need energon and recharge before the next merge," Prime explained as Nightstalker roused herself with some difficulty to look between him and her clade leader.

"I understand," Jazz agreed reluctantly. "May I take my infiltrators back to the quarters assigned to us?"

"Of course. Eclipse will see to giving all three of you your armor, and Ironhide has assigned a pair of guards who will accompany you to the parts of the base you are permitted in."

Jazz bowed his head in acceptance of the terms before looking at Prime while he helped Nightstalker to her pedes. "Who are the guards?"

"Two members of the bladewarrior cadre, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe," Prime said innocently even as Nightstalker hissed.

"They will feel betrayed by Ghost! They were his lovers," she grabbed Jazz's arm frantically. 

"Normally, I'd be the first to agree with you. But they have been bothering me nearly nonstop demanding that Mirage be let go, that there is simply no way that he is a Decepticon and traitor. They will have his back, and on my orders, will have all of your backs."

"Once we have our armor, we can protect ourselves should it go badly," Jazz murmured to her. "Come."

Nightstalker nodded warily but accepted the order to follow her leader as they were lead to Ghost's cell. The greetings were muted but strongly felt, information passed between the three so fast that even Eclipse had trouble catching it all.

But it was the first step outside the bring that made everyone tense up.

"Mirage!" the silver bladewarrior cried out and lunged for him, all excitement and pleasure as he swept the slender protoform in his arms, careful not to squeeze too tightly while his twin and the others there watched in amusement as the noble sputtered and squirmed in surprised embarrassment.

"Your boss told us what you did," Sideswipe continued, sounding far more like Bluestreak than himself. "You are a slagging hero! We knew you weren't a traitor. There was just no way. I mean, we would have killed if you were, but you aren't! You did great, too, Moonracer," he added, looking toward Nightstalker.

"Thanks," the femme said shyly, inwardly intensely relieved at the cover that was being supplied.

"I took the liberty of informing your guards about the courageous actions Mirage and Moonracer took orchestrating your capture and defection, Jazz," Eclipse explained.

The minibot protoform smiled, absently taking in the odd sensation of being the largest of the four SpecOps agents. "Thank you," he inclined his head towards the clade leader and Autobot SIC. "I'm sure it will make our integration easier."

"Please put me down," Mirage managed to sound miffed and annoyed, even if no one present believed it. "The sooner we reach our assigned quarters, the sooner I will have my armor back."

"I don't know, I was sort of looking forward to watching you walk around without your armor," Sunstreaker deadpanned, "and I haven't polished your protoform in 11 metacycles," he added.

Mirage shuddered at the erotic implication. "Perhaps ... when we reach somewhere safe. I'm not going to be well-liked for a while yet."

"All right, put him down Sideswipe," Eclipse chuckled and grinned up at the sleek frontliner. "We need to get them to the guest quarters."

"Yes, sir," the frontliner grinned widely, still too happy to see his lover free and cleared of charges to care about anything else. He easily rolled into the lead, just ahead of Eclipse, to stop any trouble that came that way, while Sunstreaker took up the rear after stealing a heated kiss and stroke of welcome from Mirage.

Ghost naturally fell in next to his brother as they walked, noting that the clade leader looked unfazed as ever walking through the enemy corridors in a sparkling's armor as though he owned the base. 

Conversation and work came to a stop as they passed mechs going about their various tasks. The hostility in the stares was met by equal hostility and comments from the twins.

A heavily armored red minibot muttered something to his companion's audio as they passed which Mirage simply ignored, but Sunstreaker abruptly turned, grabbed him by the neck and shoved him against the wall.

"Say it again, fragger," he hissed. "Just give me a reason. Mirage showed more bravery and loyalty in a single day than you've shown during you entire pathetic functioning."

::Nicely loyal and suitably violent in your defense,:: Jazz commented on a relatively private comm line to his brother. ::A good choice in them.::

::They are good mechs,:: Ghost said back carefully. ::My feelings for them have not been feigned.::

"Let him go," Eclipse ordered, though there was absolutely no mistaking that given the freedom to, he'd let the frontliner finish.

Sunstreaker glared at the SIC, then at the minibot. He gave a hard shake for good measure then dropped him.

"With the way word travels around here, I'm surprised the you slaggers haven't heard the news yet," Eclipse added, his voice carrying up and down the corridor. "Mirage and Moonracer were in protective custody after orchestrating the defection of Megatron's head of SpecOps. Prime simply needed to merge with Jazz and my operatives to ensure the defection was legit and that my agents were uncompromised. If I hear of _anyone_ threatening them or attempting to do harm, I'll let the twins know they do not have to hold back. Understood?"

Mechs up and down the main corridor gave their amazed ascent, optics glued on the silver death on pedes that had long been the bane of their operations.

Jazz gave his best charming smile in return, thoroughly amused that it made some of them _more_ nervous, not less.

"Yap, no more Decepticon Jazz," he added cheerfully.

::I suppose it would be too much to ask you to appear a little contrite?:: Eclipse commed his hopefully former rival in a tone full of good humor as they continued down another much more highly secure corridor leading to Prime's suite and the officers' quarters.

::For you, yap,:: Jazz gave him a wink and grin. ::Contrite is reserved for my clade,:: he added much more seriously. ::I'm sure there's extensive surveillance in our quarters, whether or not Prime is aware of it. We'll leave it be _if_ you agree that it will be turned off when we have clade secrets to deal with. There are things that do not need to leave SpecOps.::

::How about we agree that I will be the only one viewing that footage,:: Eclipse offered in return, his tone still deceptively lighthearted. ::Your clade secrets will remain secrets as long as they do not put at risk my Prime or my faction. On my honor as clade leader,:: he said far more seriously.

Jazz gave it a brief though serious consideration and nodded faintly. ::Agreed. I do not anticipate anything that would threaten the Autobots.::

"And here we are," the brown SIC announced cordially as they arrived at a set of adjoining officer's apartments next to Prime's suite. "Energon is available in the officers' club, or you can send one of your loyal guards for it. There is a terminal with access to the unclassified parts of our library, as well as a map outlining the parts of the base you are permitted access to. I'm aware that will not stop you from visiting other sections. I only ask that you keep me aware of where you plan to go so I can cover for you if need be and _not_ to get caught. I know I would need to do the same if I were making a decision such as yours."

"Thank you," Jazz inclined his head deeply in respect to the other clade leader, watching as Mirage and Moonracer investigated the entry room while Sunstreaker and Sideswipe did their own, faster sweeps of the warrior-class dangers and worked out how they'd defend the space. "I will keep you appraised of our activities on base, and if someone is going to leave the base to contact those still free and our informants."

"I appreciate that. You will find your armor inside ... ah, I see that Mirage and Moonracer already located theirs," Eclipse noted, looking at the two very relieved operatives with amusement. "I'll leave you to your clade," he said with a nod as he departed. 

Jazz turned his attention to his operatives and smiled at the way they moved, the speed at which Moonracer got her armor on and the way the warrior twins fussed and refused to let Mirage put his own on. He walked over to the stash and began to strip out of the sparkling armor so he could be properly armored.

An amused sound escaped his vents when he realized it had been repaired to a significant degree and by a skilled hand.

"Stop being difficult, Mirage," Sideswipe was holding the noble's backplate out of reach. "We just want to make sure you're not damaged. You hide it as well as we do when you want to."

"I am not damaged," Mirage replied haughtily. "I wasn't even interrogated." However, he made no move to stop them from doting on him, instead leaning into their touches with a glance toward Jazz. His bother and leader was smiling at the scene, his manner a mixture of amusement, tolerance and much less familiar approval. There, too, was the calculating older creation assessment of the two warriors, judging whether they were worthy, judging if their affections were true ... and to Mirage, a very clear willingness to make the pair go away by any means necessary if they proved unworthy.

Prime had given him permission to share the full truth with his lovers, but only spark to spark. There was too much risk of Jazz hearing or intercepting any other type of communication, and both agreed it was not yet time for him to know. It might not be for vorns, but Prime was certain that Jazz would reach the point where he could learn and accept it as the right choice.

"But you were locked up, without your armor," Sunstreaker huffed, far more distressed by it as a warrior than the SpecOps agents were. They didn't depend on their armor, but on their wits. Warriors lived or died by the strength of their armor; it was utterly inherent in their core code to be distressed to the point of panic by its removal.

"I'm _fine_ ," Mirage assured him again as the final piece of armor, originally generated by his own nanites, integrated perfectly with his protoform through millions of microfilaments. He vented in relief as his full sensor suite and come online, as well as his disruptor cloak. He was without his other weapons, but it was enough. He could _survive_ like this. 

Mirage reached out to Sunstreaker, pulling the larger mech's helm down to his own, leaning back into Sideswipe who was gripping his shoulders from behind. ::Let me show you both _how_ fine I am.::

The twin's powerful engines revved hard and eagerly at the suggestion as Sunstreaker knelt to enjoy the kiss more fully and Sideswipe knelt to give his hands better access to Mirage's chassis and his mouth access to the long, slender neck.

::Who do you want first?:: Sideswipe asked. ::It's too soon to have us both completely distracted.::

::He'll take the better looking twin,:: Sunstreaker answered helpfully, giving his brother a shove. ::You make sure that no one interrupts unless they want to join in.::

:: _He_ gets to choose,:: Sideswipe growled back, though he was grinning too.

"Too bad we don't have an arena," Mirage commented wryly for Jazz's benefit. "There was a time when the final champion had his pick of unclaimed, untouched second creations from whatever house had sponsored his opponent. He would take his pleasure on the mechling in front of the all the gathered spectators, however he wished to. I would enjoy watching the two of your spar for me."

Jazz's engine rumbled hotly. "I remember those contests. It was something else most of the time." His gaze turned playful. "I bet we could arrange it though, when things settle a bit. See them _prove_ they're the warriors everyone thinks they are. Even if everyone knows you are hardly untouched, you'd still be quite the prize."

Sunstreaker puffed out his armor in defiance and pride. "Of course we are. He's _ours_."

Sideswipe, however, narrowed his optics at the defector. "Just what is your connection to Mirage?"

Jazz smiled secretively at the silver frontliner. "I'll let him explain that one."

Mirage had wondered whether Jazz would choose to keep their kinship secret, but his practically open invitation along with several seemingly innocent armor flicks told the spy everything he needed to know.

"There is a reason I was the one to orchestrate Jazz's defection," Mirage said softly. "Jazz is my creators' first creation. He was ... and is ... the leader of my clade."

The two warriors looked between the pair several times, running that information through dozens of protocols and databases.

Sideswipe was the first to speak up next, his face scrunched in a frown. "But you've been an Autobot as long as he was a Decepticon."

Mirage looked down, but then met the silver warrior's optics. "Yes, I have been. I still am. But that is why I was locked up without my armor and interrogated by Prime's spark. They had to determine whether I was compromised."

"But your clade leader, your _brother_ , was a Decepticon for so long. How did you convince him? How did you turn away from him?" Sunstreaker's language center failed him, leaving him even more distressed looking than before.

Mirage found himself ironically telling the partial truth that Jazz would believe was a cover. "I _was_ a Decepticon," he said simply. "I couldn't resist the power of Prime's spark, became convinced I was on the wrong side. I fed information to Jazz that in turn convinced him. I hated every second that our clade functioned on two separate sides of the war."

Once more the warriors looked between their lover and his brother, then Sideswipe focused on Moonracer. "What about you? How do you fit into this?"

Ghost watched as Nightstalker switched fully into her Ops mode, a change not apparent to anyone outside of her clade.

"I've always been an Autobot," she said with her signature pride. "Eclipse assigned me to work with Mirage on the mission. I was interrogated just like Mirage to avoid their being any apparent difference in how we were treated. It is very important that Mirage and Jazz's relationship be kept a secret until Prime and Eclipse and deems it safe to do so."

It seemed to satisfy the pair, who turned their focus back on their lover.

"Is ... is Mirage your real designation?" Sideswipe asked quietly, earning a somewhat surprised look from his twin. "The one you use inside your processors?"

Mirage was thoughtful about what seemed to be a simple question, pausing several nanokliks before speaking. "Mirage is not my original designation, but neither is Ghost, the designation I took when my clade backed Megatron. I ... I've been Mirage for so long that is who I thought of myself as until I was reunited with Jazz. Now ... I'll continue to be Mirage. My original designation truly has no meaning to me any longer. We Ops mechs discard designations the way other might change paint jobs or add a new mod."

That disturbed the pair as well, but they seemed to accept it readily enough. It wasn't nearly as weird as the idea that he'd been a Decepticon.

"Okay, so who first?" Sideswipe asked with a nuzzle to Mirage's neck.

Ghost looked at the two perceptively, reading subtle movements in their armor and fields. Sunstreaker outwardly appeared more upset, but Sideswipe was actually the more disturbed of the two.

He answered the question by meeting the silver twin's lips. He needed to _merge_ and hardline with his lovers, to give him the complete truth and to set the firewalls that would protect them from recalling the information unless they were with him. Jazz would see him do so, but Jazz knew Ghost's ... no, Mirage's capabilities well enough to know that he could control what he shared by spark with anyone other than Prime and Jazz himself. Jazz would not know that he was actually giving them more information than he already had.

Sideswipe's field enveloped him almost immediately, the kiss returned with heated need while Sunstreaker stood and skated backwards, taking his duty as guard over his brother, their lover and kin.

He focused briefly on Moonracer, a look that warned that he had questions about her still, before glaring for a long time at the mech that, in the privacy of their berths, many feared more than Megatron. Megatron you saw coming, you only faced in battle. This one and his kind came in the night and you never saw, never got a chance to fight. You simply extinguished in your recharge. A fate most warriors feared, even if they wouldn't admit it.

"You're staring," Jazz grinned at him. "Want some?"

Sunstreaker jerked fully upright, his armor flaring out to its full extension as his optics spiraled wide. He sputtered static for several long nanokliks before finding his vocalizer thanks to his twin's snickers over their bond.

"I'm on duty," the golden twin said instead of answering. "I still don't trust you."

"Smart mech," Jazz grinned up at him.

Nightstalker gave all of those in the room a measured look, then walked to one of the adjoining rooms and lay down on the berth, clearly desiring to be alone. Mirage, however, was oblivious to anything but the large silver warrior who was steering him toward the berth in their current room. They were already hardline connected and the sounds escaping the pair were more than enough to keep Jazz's attention.

"Sunstreaker," the silver minibot looked over to the golden bladewarrior. "How did you come to be with Mirage? You aren't his typical lover."

The gold bladewarrior glared at him for a moment, uncertain if he had been insulted. 

"He modeled for me," he finally said. "During a slow vorn in the war. I was doing a study on different frametypes. Thought he would tell me to frag off when I asked him. Instead, he was interested in my art."

Jazz hummed and rippled his armor in understanding, amusement and agreement. "He _is_ a noble, created and raised. You're the kind he'd have sponsored." He dropped into a padded chair in the entertainment part of the main room, still keeping an optic on the lovers but his main focus on Sunstreaker. "How'd you ever find out you had a talent for art? It's not a typical warrior caste hobby."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "How does anyone find out anything they are outside of their coded function."

"Too much damage to spar and an irritable medic?" Jazz snickered.

Sunstreaker laughed despite himself. "Interface units removed to prevent overtaxing your system," he added. "It was either paint or kill someone, and the only someones available were in the brig or were Autobots."

Jazz laughed brightly, his optics glowing in mirth behind his black visor. "Godda love Ratchet sometimes. Mech's creative, I'll give him that. Probably saw it in your code sometime you were really down."

A heavy pounding on the door waylaid a response.

"You answer it or me?" Jazz glanced at his guard.

Sunstreaker grunted and shouldered past Jazz to the door, preventing the mid-sized frontline class red mech from entering. 

"What do you want, Cliffjumper? Order are that they aren't to be disturbed."

"Since when did either of us give a slag about orders?" Cliffjumper growled, not the least bit put off by staring up at the larger frontliner. "Moonracer's here and I want to talk to her. You weren't the only ones who didn't buy the traitor slag."

"Don't call me Sunny," he snarled, his blades snapping to full length. "She's not up. Come back later, _after_ they're cleared for visitors."

Jazz pinged his subordinate and asked if she wanted to see Cliffjumper. The response was little more than a grunt, but it was enough. "She doesn't not want to see him," he said helpfully to the two frontliners facing off at the door.

"Good enough for me," Cliffjumper said, pushing his way past Sunstreaker.

"Hey!" the gold warrior yelled, grabbing the smaller mech and pushing him against the wall. "They aren't cleared for visitors yet. Go to Eclipse and get permission. No one who isn't cleared is getting in on my watch. I don't care if you're her lover or her long lost caretaker."

Moonracer walked out of the room she had been trying to recharge in, completely ignoring the two mechs in the throws of passion on the berth. "What do you want, Cliff?" she said in a resigned tone.

"The truth," he snapped, but his expression softened considerably. "What's the deal with this traitor slag? You're no traitor. And what's _he_ doing here?" he jerked his chin at Jazz.

"Let him down, Sunstreaker. I'll talk with him. If the two of you get to know your lover is ok, it is only right that mine knows, too. Can we ... get away from those two?" she asked, glancing over at the pair who were coming dangerously close to sharing sparks with far too much company around.

"You hurt her and I'll pound you into oblivion, got it runt?" Sunstreaker dragged Cliffjumper up to his optic level.

"Yeah, yeah, like I'd ever hurt her," the smaller mech glared back, only just managing to catch himself on his pedes when he was dropped and Sunstreaker stepped back. He focus on Moonracer, walking up to her and briefly touching forehelms. "The room you were in?" He suggested, even more eager than she was to get away from Sunstreaker with his brother about to expose his spark.

She gave a curt nod and walked back into the dark room. She'd had no desire to bring up the lights before, but she increased them to a dim level now as the door slid shut.

She collapsed back on the berth and put her helm in her hands, wanting desperately to no longer be under cover, to slip out of mission mode and never have to return. Or perhaps she wanted to slip back into it, and forget all about Nightstalker. Either would work, really. Either way the dual existence would dim.

When she had been Moonracer, when she hadn't even been aware that she was anyone different, she loved the mech who was sitting with her now, putting his arm around her and murmuring comforting words. As soon as Jazz's spark was interrogated, a signal automatically brought up her real ID. Nightstalker hated the Autobots, despised them for being weak and for failing to stand by Megatron to change and bring hope to their world. Moonracer was a loyal Autobot scout who had no idea she was regularly passing on information to the Decepticons when she was on patrol or missions. 

And now the mech she would have followed to the pit and back had left the 'Cons, told her they were on the wrong side, and ordered her to merge with Prime, an event she couldn't even bring herself to think about yet in terms of its implications.

"Racer?" his voice finally demanded her attention, the concern and distress there pulling at the part of her that was an Autobot. "Please, babe, don't shut me out. I don't care what happened, just don't keep hiding."

With a sob she gave in to the Autobot and let herself cling to him, gripping the front of his armor. "Cliff," she said, venting hard. "Just face with me. Please, let me forget about it for awhile. I need to spike you and forget." 

"Sure, babe," he murmured, holding her tightly against his much heavier but not much taller frame. He stroked her back and drew her face up into a gentle kiss.

The responding kiss was anything but gentle. She was suddenly hard and demanding, gripping his warrior hands with her long, thin troubleshooter fingers. She bit at his neck cabling, growling at him to open.

Despite the flicker of surprise at the unusually aggressive manner, he didn't hesitate. His interface panel slid open, his valve growing slick in anticipation even without much arousal to prompt it.

Without a word, she turned her body so she could kiss the tip of his spike with desperate intensity, flicking her glossa into the slit before swallowing it whole. Her own panel was poised over his mouth, spike pressurized and trembling, lubricants dripping on him from her clenching valve.

Cliffjumper didn't need any prompting to seal his mouth components around her valve entrance and thrust his glossa inside, scraping against the pliable walls and pressing hard, sliding, against the sensor node clusters he could reach. He reached his hand up to close around her spike, stroking and squeezing in tempo with her movements against him.

Her moans were muffled against his spike as she massaged and sucked him with expert care, not drawing anything out, just wanting to feel his fluid pumping into her intake, as if by consuming him she could bring back the Autobot she was and _forget_.

Pleasure built, the charge making his hips buck into her as he moaned against her valve. He was no more inclined to hold back than she was, and soon his building charge tingled on her lips and throat as it danced from his spike to her plating.

With a feral growl, she plunged four of her long fingers into his valve, hitting multiple sensors at once even as her mouth pumped his spike. It was all it took to push him over the edge. Energy crackled along his frame, the charge ran up his glossa and into the lining of her valve, tipping her over into frantic ecstasy as she eagerly took his fluid down her intake.

When he gave a final shudder, she shifted again, and plunged her spike into his valve, moaning his name. His legs wrapped around her, as his arms, drawing her into a kiss that mimicked the thrusting pleasure of their hips.

"Oh Cliff," she moaned, losing herself in the nearly brutal pace, knowing she couldn't hurt him, that he would take whatever she had to give.

The sound of chest plates unlocking under her seemed incredibly loud, even with the clanging and scraping of their chassis.

"Show me?" he murmured hopefully. "Know you hate to talk."

She let out a keen at the sight of his spark, so trusting underneath her, the enemy, the person who had been passing along secrets and who had cost his friends their lives. She shouldn't care. She was a Decepticon. She had done her job and should have no regrets.

Except that now she had merged with Prime, and she regretted all of it while still despising and loving the Autobots all at once. Prime had given her permission to _be_ Moonracer, if she chose to.

Without conscious decision, her chestplates spread wide and she offered herself to her lover - all of herself, allowing him to be her judge, jury, and executioner if he chose.

The merge happened fast between her own desire to have the torture be over with and his completely surprise at the speed, then the information being dropping directly into his spark.

"You WHAT!" Cliffjumper bellowed, shoving her off and halfway across the small room. He was on his feet, fists clenched and chest plates closing before she finished rolling to a stop on the floor.

"I didn't know!" she screamed at him, continuing her roll into a defensive position. "I only knew I was Moonracer. I didn't even know Nightstalker existed!"

"Didn't know?" he snarled, taking one step forward before the door slid open to admit Sunstreaker, who lunged for the smaller frontliner, and Jazz, who went right for Nightstalker. "Let me go!" he roared at Sunstreaker, who had him rather neatly pinned.

"All my vorns with the Autobots, and when I fell for you, yes, I didn't know! That is the way these kind of Ops covers work, Cliff! You want to kill me, for being reprogrammed and having no idea who I was. Fine! Let him up, Sideswipe. Let him show just how forgiving and merciful you Autobots are!" She lunged at both frontliners, only to find herself restrained by her commander.

"Can't do that," Sunstreaker countered, still pinning the struggling, snarling mech under him with relative ease. "Prime ordered you protected, and you're going to be protected."

"Cliffjumper, if you don't calm down, _I'm_ going to calm you down," Jazz warned.

"You are protecting traitors!" Cliffjumper growled at Sunstreaker. "How many good mechs died because of them?"

"Prime's order," the golden warrior repeated, shoving the red minibot back down. "Why isn't our concern."

"What is going on in here?" a distinctive voice roared as Prime himself walked in.

"Cliffjumper took offense to something Moonracer told him," he glanced at his subordinate, well aware that Sunstreaker hadn't been informed yet, at least not unless Sideswipe knew and had told him already.

"Cliffjumper, with me," Prime ordered in a tone that could cause his closest friends to fear. He physically picked up the minibot who had frozen in the middle of his struggle as soon as Prime had grabbed him. "Sunstreaker, I don't want _anyone_ else in these quarters other than command staff until I've given the word, do you understand? He could have killed her while they merged."

"Yes, sir," the golden warrior sounded as shamed and repentant as he looked. "I won't fail again."

"Prime, I said I would see him," Nightstalker rushed forward, though she didn't come close enough to touch. "He had a right to know. Especially after the twins."

"Right to know what?" Sunstreaker suddenly asked, turning toward her. "You had just finished telling us you've always been an Autobot. Why is he so angry with you in the first place?"

Suddenly Prime was watching her too, watching her squirm.

She sighed deeply and turned to the golden warrior, aware that his twin was standing just on the other side of Prime. "Do you know what a mole is?"

"Smaller than a glitch mouse, prefers dark places," Sunstreaker shot back, clearly in no mood to play guessing games.

After venting a deep sigh, she met his gaze. "It's a mech that is unaware they aren't who they say they are, isn't aware they're gathering intel for the enemy. Like Mirage, Moonracer isn't my real self," she dropped her gaze. "Though I intend her to be if I last long enough."

Before Sunstreaker could respond, Sideswipe had his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Go be with Mirage," he said quietly. "Merge with him."

The twins shared a potent gaze, a great deal passing between them across their twin bond without words.

Despite the tension still in his frame, the golden twin nodded and locked gaze with Mirage. "In here, when they're gone," he insisted gruffly. Mirage inclined his head to his lover, some of the tension bleeding from his frame.

Cliffjumper muttered from his spot where he was held against Prime's chassis, all the fight having gone out of him being in close proximity to Prime's spark.

"Do you mean that, Moonracer?" Prime asked. "Would you allow that of her, Jazz? To forget she is Nightstalker and allow her to return to her duties, but without the mole virus?"

"Yes. I was happier as Moonracer. I knew what I stood for and believed in, and who I loved," she looked pointedly at Cliffjumper. "If Jazz is right that we were on the wrong side, then I'd rather not remember the femme who sided with them in the first place."

Jazz shrugged. "I have no issue with suppressing Nightstalker again, but I'm not giving up my agent completely. She's clade. I've lost too many already."

Her optics met Cliffjumper's, but he immediately looked away. He was not going to trust her again, not for a very long time. 

"It is your decision, then, Moonracer," Prime said. "But you will still be under house arrest until Jazz has made up his mind. Whether you are aware of it, or not, you are his operative."

"I understand, Prime," she bowed her head, then turned to face Jazz. "Do it. Whatever the story is for her to be stuck in here, just do it."

The sleek silver minibot nodded and motioned her to follow. "This'll take most of an orn," he added off handedly to the twins before leading her into a second berth-room.

Sensing that his soldier was once again in control, Prime set him down. "She was only a 'Con because her clade was. Family loyalty far surpasses factional loyalty for their caste."

"Mechs are dead because of her, Lord Prime," Cliffjumper spat back.

"Mechs are dead because of _me_ ," Prime countered, his voice grave. "I failed to stop my brother. I failed to discover her. All of SpecOps failed to notice her." He lowered to one knee to get optic level with the minibot frontliner and put a hand on his shoulder. "Do not hold what she was not even aware of, what she will no longer be aware of, against her. When she was Moonracer, she knew nothing of what she was doing against us."

"She might not have been aware, but she was still under _his_ control, and she still will be," Cliffjumper spat back. "And she chose to become what she was, even if she no longer remembers." 

"She was _kindled_ to what she became, and as a junior member of her clade, has about as much say in what assignments and programming she accepts as a drone," Optimus answered, his voice becoming hard. "You will tell no one about their identities or origins."

The frontliner rumbled, his engine growling angrily, only to abruptly still as Cliffjumper looked down, the fight going out of his frame. "Yes, Prime," he murmured, reluctant but with no doubt that he would comply.


	4. Chapter 4

"I really don't like this," Ironhide grumbled, his cannons whining with power and spinning in his unease, though they remained off-line.

"I do not believe anyone is particularly pleased, old friend," Optimus Prime replied as they walked to the training room that had seen a massive security update to host the challenge for clade leadership. Jazz and Prime had settled the other agents, some more agreeable than others, but as expected, Vagrant demanded a formal challenge before the clade. Jazz had no choice but to agree, which put a great deal of pressure on Prime to arrange it before they all vanished to handle it elsewhere.

Next to them, the small brown oddity who was his SIC simply laughed as they entered the spectator booth. "It will be quite the show. Enjoy it. Other than his deceased SIC, Vagrant is the only one who can give a serious showing against Jazz in a clade challenge. You are about to witness something never seen by outsiders."

Prime nodded, his optics sliding over the shifting uneasiness of nearly a dozen mechs gathered in the room to lock onto Jazz and his opponent. Every mech was fully armored, and though their weapons systems were still disabled, that didn't mean much with this lot and everyone in the area knew it. It had been a struggle to make Ironhide understand the need to give Vagrant his armor even though he had not merged with Prime yet and was definitely still Con-loyal.

It was the clade members watching that told him just how much was at stake, and just how uncertain they were at who would win or what it would mean either way.

"Just how often do _you_ do this?" Ironhide asked gruffly, optics locked on the combatants as they circled each other, judging them, their threat, and found he didn't like it one bit if either one turned on the Autobots.

"Serious challenges to clade leadership are rare," Eclipse explained, his optics bright with excitement at what he was watching, "though younger mechs will challenge simply for the honor of fighting and being defeated by their lord. It is considered a highly honorable way to learn. Even the serious challenges are not always to the death. Physically disabling an opponent and successfully hacking their systems and overcoming their spark counts as a victory that will end the conflict for centuries."

"What do you see as the likely result of this one?" Prime asked with a soft rumble at the first blows exchanged. To him, it was still in the testing phase. They were clearly familiar with each other's fighting style and capabilities, but were confirming that information.

"Jazz will take him, though it won't be easy. He'll hack 'em and then give him a choice through sparkmerge to yield and submit to reprogramming of his loyalty codes, or death. Vagrant will choose death, just as Nitrate did," Eclipse said with confidence, halfway standing in excitement as Jazz managed to get a side kick underneath Vagrant's guard, causing the mech to briefly stagger before going back on the offensive. "Some clade lords wouldn't give him the choice, but I doubt Jazz is one of them."

"He's not," Prime agreed, uncertain in his spark which he found preferable. Yes, he firmly believed that every mechanism should be allowed free choice, yet free choice here would be the end of a spark.

"You're closer to the warrior caste than anyone gives you credit for," Ironhide grunted, a bit more respect in his tone.

"We have a strong code of honor within our caste despite other castes believing we are those who are willing to act without honor for the right price," Eclipse said without any bitterness. "We have never viewed ourselves that way. The most respected clade lords are those who will put themselves in the service only of those who deserve it, regardless of what is offered in return."

Vagrant made a sudden move, running partly up the wall and launching himself at the Jazz's smaller frame, taking him down to the floor and jamming is fingers into the cables of the saboteur's neck, drawing first energon before he was thrown off as Jazz used the momentum to continue the roll. In the flash of an optic Jazz was on top of his opponent, claws digging into a shoulder join to disable it.

"Will you have to fight Jazz if he joins us?" Prime asked as he began to get a better sense for the politics behind the battle.

"We are not from the same clade. I am your SIC and head of SpecOps by military rank. Clade leadership is something completely different from that, though rank comes into play. Clade leaders make binding agreements with one another when they form an alliance, and typically operatives from a different clade are temporarily adopted into the clade of the ranking leader under those agreements. Vagrant was the leader of one of the three clades that supported Megatron. Jazz's intended was the other. They and their clade members were adopted into Jazz's clade when it was obvious that Megatron wanted Jazz as the head. They could not challenge Jazz for leadership unless he broke their agreement. Jazz's defection nulls the agreement, so Vagrant is now free to challenge him for leadership of all members of the three clades involved."

"So why wouldn't Jazz challenge you?" Ironhide asked before grunting in appreciation for a series of lightning fast strikes Vagrant made that cracked one of Jazz's optics and dislodged a sensor horn. 

"Considering that he believes he chose the wrong faction and led his clade poorly, it would be expected that he would come under my authority automatically until his clade has redeemed itself, and even then, he will not challenge me unless I break whatever agreement we arrive at for our alliance. But even if he did challenge me, he would not be able to best me. Physically, he would win a battle, but he would not be able to hack me, so it would be a stalemate even if it happened."

"He can't hack you, you can't hack him," Ironhide grunted, his optics locked on the action.

Prime nodded faintly and opened a channel to Ratchet. ::Be prepared for significant damage to Jazz. This is as brutal as any battle.::

Jazz showed no sign of pain even with the obvious damage. The next ruthless attack on Vagrant made is seem as though Jazz was only now getting serious about the fight. In a lightning fast move, the silver mech was suddenly on the black mech's back, slicing several lines with his bare claws before jumping out of reach of the retaliatory swipe.

"You know, if he sides we us, he'd be as useful on the front lines as anywhere," Ironhide rumbled, watching the evenly matched mechs work on bleeding the other out. "He's crazy enough to do well and skilled enough to survive it."

"He'd enjoy the violence of it, as well," Eclipse agreed, "though I think he prefers being the unknown, secretive terror over the known one.

The next set of attacks happened nearly to fast for even mech sensors to follow. Somehow, Jazz ended up on the floor, pinned by Vagrant's greater bulk and weight as the challenger extended at ten cables that overlooked Jazz's dataports altogether. Instead, they dug in between armor plates and manually tried to jack into his systems. The battle was suddenly between processors rather than physical skill. All was quiet as a Herculean battle took place in front of both mech's firewalls. Suddenly Vagrant gave a scream and collapsed. 

Jazz's cables were in his ports and the mech was physically immobilized before the echo of his keen died in the chamber. 

"Smart mech," Eclipse said with a chuckle. "He let Vagrant overpower him. Must have decided he didn't want to spend too much time in medbay. Knew that once Vagrant was in his systems, he could overpower him easily. Now it is all about a ripping any information Jazz wants from his processors, and then sparks." 

"How can you tell what's going on, from the outside?" Prime asked, watching the silent, still battle with a sinking spark. This was violation of the most intimate kind, and he'd arranged for it, knowing it would happen.

"It is what I would have done," Eclipse explained, leaning forward with a lustful leer on his face showing far too clearly how turned on he was by the prospect of breaking the mind of a strong opponent. "Jazz would not have been that easily taken down. Vagrant's weakness is his battle frenzy. He should have known that Jazz was letting him hack him, but he allowed himself to become too emotional. While physical skill is important, it is the processor that makes a clade leader in our caste."

There were physical twitches and moans that showed just how hard the larger mech was fighting the rape of his processors. Jazz, on the other hand, appeared completely relaxed, sprawled comfortably on top of his opponent as though they were lovers resting after a good 'facing. 

When Jazz moved next, it took all of Prime's will to continue watching as the silver terror shifted, mimicking lovers even more as he straddled his opponent, then leaned forward and kissed unresponsive lip components.

Ironhide did look away, though he was as much disturbed by Eclipse's reactions as the scene itself.

Prime forced himself to look at the others, to gage their reactions to the scene. It was painfully easy to tell who the interrogators were and who were ill-suited to the duty. One mech, who'd turned himself in with his companion at the front gate, was hard pressed to keep from pushing the Decepticon he'd arrived with against the wall and ravishing him.

The room was filled with the distinctive mechanical sound of chestplates sliding apart. If they didn't know better, it would have appeared that Vagrant had opened is willingly rather than having his most basic motor controls hacked by the skilled mech on top of him. 

But as Jazz's amethyst spark lunged for green one underneath him, it was clear this was anything but a lovers' merge. Tendrils were wrapping around one another in a battle every bit as intense as the battle of their frames. Finally, the green spark relented, and their coronas came together.

"He'll give 'em the choice now - full one sided merge and loyalty reprogramming or death," Eclipse's accent was thick with arousal.

"How ...do you kill in a merge?" the warrior in Ironhide wouldn't let him not ask. "And not extinguish yourself."

"I've seen it happen two ways," Eclipse said in a low voice. "If you direct all of the energy of a massive overload right at the other spark's core, it will quite literally explode. That is the kind route. The other is to create a one sided bond so strong that the other spark cannot stay in its frame and its energy is absorbed into the victor's before it extinguishes. It is an excruciating process for the victor, and likely for the defeated as well."

The room was completely still as Jazz's spark pushed unsuccessfully to deepen the merge. Suddenly, Jazz flung himself away while Vagrant seemed to literally dissolve from the inside out.

"Or there is that option," Eclipse said mildly. "Vagrant activated his own kill protocols hoping to take Jazz with him."

Even being aware of many SpecOps agents by merge, even knowing Jazz's every memory and protocol, Prime couldn't stop the sickness in his tanks or spark as he felt a spark pass through the Matrix and onto the Well of All Sparks, returning to Primus from whence it came.

Jazz stood shakily, locking optics with each of his agents, three clades worth he now had to make a single clade from, even when no ties of creation and creator existed. Not a single sound was made by any mech, each meeting their leader's optics without defiance.

"Mirage," he locked onto his brother. "My Second. See to what needs to be done while I am repaired."

"Of course, my Lord," he rippled his armor respectfully with the bow.

"What have we brought into our fold," Ironhide muttered.

"Someone we had better be worthy of having on our side, or we will live to regret it, just as Megatron already is," Eclipse said evenly. 

"Well, this is just lovely. I can't even scrap the slagger for parts now," grumbled a familiar voice as Ratchet stomped into the training room. "You could've at least left his frame intact. It isn't like I have a whole bunch of parts lying around to fix up your sorry aft from infighting."

"For _once_ , I didn't do the damage," Jazz scowled right back, not the least bit intimidated by the much larger medic or his reputation. "Say hello to SpecOps kill protocols. We make a point of not leaving anything behind to hack or use against the rest of us."

Ratchet gave him a glare, but efficiently began capping off the torn and punctured energon lines so Jazz wouldn't bleed out on the way to medbay. "And merging with him while hardlined with those protocols still intact was completely glitched, by the way," he grumbled even as he offered Jazz a steady shoulder for their walk.

"It's how we do things," Jazz shrugged. "I can walk." He turned to look at those he had unquestioning command of now. "Breaker, Patchjob, come on. They won't have all the parts for me."

"Yes sir," the two mechs answered with a confident assurance all on his team had lacked until this moment. Ratchet grunted and then got them signaled for all three of them to follow with a jerk of his chin. Ironhide and Sunstreaker followed as well, to both protect and defend against the dangerous energon-smeared mech while Sideswipe and Eclipse took the rest of the group back to the three adjoining Prime's guest quarters they were calling home for the time being.

"I would have thought a medic of your caliber wouldn't have any issues creating needed parts," Jazz smirked up at the mech he was intentionally bating.

"I don't believe in waste. Why fabricate when you can reuse," he replied, unaffected. "I would have thought a mech of your caliber could have put an end to the fight without nearly getting his aft handed to him," he added with a glint in his optics.

"If I broke the rules, I could have," Jazz replied just as smoothly. "It would have defeated the purpose of the fight."

Ratchet simply grunted and steered Jazz into medbay like an errant youngling. "On the berth," he ordered, pointing to one that was the proper height for a minibot.

Jazz complied with a cheeky grin, his manner too relaxed for Ratchet's comfort. Yet it was the two subordinate mechs that the medic kept his optic on. _They_ were acting like sparklings turned loose in an energon confection store as they systematically explored the medbay. Patchjob seemed more at home, but not by much.

"Stop that!" Ratchet barked as they began looking through his supplies. " _You_ sit there," he pointed to a berth on one end of the room. " _You_ sit there," he pointed to another on the opposite side. "You will wait until I figure out what I need, and _then_ I will find the appropriate parts for you to engineer to Jazz specifications." 

He began roughly examining Jazz's cracked visor and missing sensor horn.

"And no talking!" he added when the other two began chattering in their clade dialect. All he accomplished was to make the conversation go silent, restricted to hands, armor and non-vocal comm signals.

"Those two are about as easy to make go truly quiet as that pretty Praxian mechling. Bluestreak, I think he is," Jazz supplied, completely relaxed by all appearances despite the handling.

"Yap!" Breaker piped up. "Couldn't get him to shut up, but never said anything _useful_. Pit of a loyal Autobot," he added with a tenor of solid respect.

"You were the one who tortured him when he was captured?!" Ratchet roared, turning toward the far too innocent looking mech, smaller than Jazz and brightly colored.

"Yap," Breaker nodded, meeting the medic's rage with calm self-assurance. "They call me Breaker for a reason. Just be glad he was classified as not having any useful intel or I would have really worked him over, instead of using him as a training aid."

The previous roar from Ratchet had nothing on the one that echoed through medbay. In an instant, Ironhide and Sunstreaker were on him, holding him back, knowing that the medic would tear the young ops agent limb from limb in this mood. 

"I would advise not bragging about torturing Autobots while you are here," Ironhide warned with gritted dentes. "Especially ones we've raised from younglings whose creators were destroyed by the slagging 'Cons."

Breaker cocked his head at the scene, studying it without being proud of it. All three SpecOps mechs studied the Autobots as the two warriors worked hard to wrestle the medic to the ground.

 _"He's nearly a Con,"_ Jazz said to his subordinates in the silent clade dialect. _"Warrior first, medic second."_

The other two rippled their armor in agreement before Breaker slipped off the berth and approached the struggling mass of metal.

"I'm sorry I hurt your friend," he said honestly, trying to meet the struggling medic's optics. "It's my function." He paused, considering the situation. "I'll apologize to him if you want."

Jazz made a silent twitch of approval towards his agent's choice.

"How can you be _sorry_ about something that is your basic function, part of your core code?" Ratchet growled in response, still struggling against the warriors holding him down, but with noticeably less effort. "I could no more be sorry for being a medic. When we traded for him, he came back so physically damaged he still requires ongoing repairs. He was slagged beyond recognition, his sensor wings were _ripped off_ , and he had been raped in every way possible. I'm not certain the mechling will ever be able to interface without having a meltdown. And I find out that you did this to him as a _training exercise_ and now you want to apologize to him for it! _I don't fragging think so!_ " Ratchet roared, his optics flashing red.

All three Ops mechs cycled their optics in surprise, and though Jazz recovered first, he allowed Breaker to defend himself.

"I didn't do any of those things," the young interrogator said quietly. "That's not how I interrogate. It's not how most of us do it. Physical damage can help break down a mech's defenses, yes. It's used, yes, but that was flat torture for the sake of sadists. That was from the general population."

"You just said you were the one to work him over! Now you are denying it? So you let the general population do it for you, then rape their minds when they're weak? Is that it?" Ratchet's saws began revolving dangerously with his fury, and a noticeably silent Ironhide and Sunstreaker held him tighter. 

"I worked over his processors," Breaker reiterated, beginning to get defensive despite his effort to remain calm. "No, the general population didn't get him first. He was sent to the brig with the same damage he was captured with when I was done with him. What happened to him after he was out of my custody wasn't my concern and was not my doing.

"As for being sorry for doing my function, by the accounts I've read you _have_ been sorry to do your duty as a medic," Breaker tried valiantly not to hiss, though his puffed out armor spoke volumes of his state. "Letting one mech extinguish so another might live. I can be sorry for hurting your friend even if I'm not sorry for doing my job."

"You've got to calm down, Hatch," Sunstreaker surprised everyone by speaking up in a reasonable tone. "They were SpecOps mechs working with the 'Cons. What did you expect them to do? Give him energon goodies and have a nice chat?"

"You aren't the one dealing with the aftermath with Bluestreak," Ratchet grumbled, but did calm down a notch. Neither of the frontliners took their hands off of him.

"You think Eclipse does things any differently? He physically tortured Jazz before handing him over to Prime, and then Prime raped his processors and spark. You think that isn't rape, just because a mech can't resist the call of his spark ends up enjoying it? Prime has merged with every single one of their team, whether they wanted to or not," Sunstreaker continued. "You going to condemn that, too? How about what Sides and I do on the battlefield? Shall we get into that?"

"No," Ratchet muttered, though he still wasn't calm enough.

"Look, you don't have to treat us, any of us," Jazz spoke up and slid from the berth. "Nobody's got serious damage that requires a medic. It's all stuff we can tend to on our own."

"Before you condemn me for my function, take a good long look at your own SpecOps agents," Breaker added, walking to join his leader. "We do our job, we do it well. It's not personal when you do it right."

"That's the fragging problem. I _know_ what ours do, and now we have another whole slagging platoon of you if Prime gets his way," Ratchet groused, but at the tone, Sunstreaker and Ironhide let him up. They knew he was no longer in a killing rage. 

"And don't you even _think_ of leaving this medbay before I treat you," he continued after he had stood, sticking a finger into Jazz's chest. "While you are on this base, I'm responsible for your sorry frame, and I won't have mechs walking around with field repairs."

Jazz cocked his head, regarding the medic and judging him before he walked back to the berth he'd abandoned and hopped up on it, a move that sent the other two back to their assigned locations.

Ratchet worked in silence, soldering torn lines or replacing them when necessary. He brought Jazz's complex sensory horn out of subspace and examined the damage before handing it off to Fixit, quietly instructing him where to find the parts he would need to repair it. 

He turned his attention to Jazz's shattered knee shoulder joint and began carefully clearing out the ground up joint before it could clog more of his gears. 

"I don't condemn you for your function," the CMO murmured quietly, clearly addressing Breaker as he worked. "I condemn mechs choosing those kind of functions for sparklings before they have any sense of what their spark yearns for. We've lost so much of what we once were, and all of the specialization and function-based coding we give to our new sparks is a big part of it."

"Primus wouldn't send a spark that was ill-suited to what the frame was for," Breaker countered, not completely understanding the statement. _His_ culture had lost very little after all, at least from his perspective.

"Heard that my whole functioning, and I wish it was true, kid," Ratchet said with genuine sadness. "Some of the worst damage I deal with is in mechs whose primary function tears at their sparks. I can fix frames. I can fix processors. Only Primus and Prime can fix a damaged spark, and some damage runs far too deep. I've seen mechs expire from it. I know castes such as yours deactivate younglings when its clear that's what happened. Takes away freedom and self-determination to give so much core code to a sparkling. Not how Primus meant us to be. They could have chosen their own path."

Though he wasn't looking at them, Ratchet could feel the two mechs focus on Jazz and the intense comm chatter happening on a frequency he couldn't break into. Not that he expected he'd understand a word of it even if he could.

What he could tell was that Breaker was getting restless and Patchjob downright distressed.

Ratchet wisely remained quiet, finishing his repairs on Jazz's shoulder. 

"I'm going to replace your visor. That crack is too large for self repair. You want to program one yourself, or would you like to give me yours so I can be sure it has the same functions?" the CMO asked quietly.

"I'll program it," Jazz said firmly. "What colors do you have?" he chirped eagerly.

Ratchet scanned some measurements. "I'll bring you out the choices. We have a few different models and colors." 

He stomped out of the room to collect the choices, leaving an awkward silence that almost immediately broke into quiet clade chatter as the three came together. Even not understanding a single word, Ratchet could work out Jazz putting down the law, then patiently answering questions until the other two settled down.

It wasn't at all what he expected of the Decepticon SpecOps commander.

"Ratchet's an aft because he cares. The more he cares, the bigger aft he is. He doesn't like you all that much yet. Just wait till he starts to really care for you," Sunstreaker commented helpfully, only to be thwacked on the helm hard enough to dent as Ratchet returned.

"My audios work just fine, glitch," he grumbled, a tinge of humor returning to his tone, setting out the wide variety visor choices for Jazz and his operatives to go through.

"Ooo," Jazz trilled excitedly at a visor that most mechs hated. It was an odd shade of orange, but it was also swept with several angles and flairs that made it distinctive in a way not favored by Autobots in general. "Where did you ever get your hands on a Dicrita?"

"Salvaged from Praxis," Ratchet said flatly.

"Would make you look like a circus mech, boss," Patchjob offered.

"I think Sunstreaker should take it. Would clash brilliantly with his paint," Breaker added.

"Like the pit I'm wearing a visor," the golden frontliner growled at him.

Jazz snickered. "As much as tormenting our Sunshine about his looks is fun, I like this one enough to keep it," Jazz trilled into a purr and snapped the visor into place. "It's been ages since I got my hands on a Dicrita."

"It's Sunstreaker!" the mech in question snarled, agitated even further by the fact that neither Jazz nor Breaker paid his rage any mind, though Patchjob shied away from him.

"Aren't you supposed to look discrete if you are on a mission?" Ironhide asked, clearly amused and the garish fashion-visor.

"Only sometimes," Jazz flicked the visor up and winked one emerald green optic. "It depends on what I'm trying to do."

"Well, it's not going to work very well for seduction, if that's your plan, but you know where to come when the novelty wears off," Ratchet grumbled, but there was humor in his optics. "How's the sensor horn coming along, Fixit?"

"Mostly repaired. Just having a little difficulty integrating the circuitry," the autobot medic assistant admitted.

"Give it to Patchjob," Ratchet said tersely. "These Ops mechs have a circuitry all their own."

"You have no idea," Patchjob rolled his ruby-tone optics and walked over to take the sensor horn. "Nice work," he said politely to Fixit as he went to work on what was left. "They're worse than Seekers."

"You mean they are vain, arrogant, have instincts that put organics to shame, and constantly needing to 'face?" Fixit asked innocently. 

The other mech froze, cycling his optics as he tried to trace where the conversation went so far sideways. "Umm, actually I meant that SpecOps mechs have even more unique and specialized parts than Seekers. Pain in the aft to fix, cause nearly everything's a custom job."

"Knew what you meant, aft. Why don't you show me how you integrate the circuitry so I can do it in an emergency," the friendly medic put his hand on the former 'Cons shoulder. 

Ratchet stepped closer to observe as well, fascinated by the intricacies of what had to be a junior medic must know to do such work. He was sure that Patchjob was younger than Fixit, but maybe he was wrong. It took most mechs a long time to reach this level of skill, especially with a full medic staring over their shoulder.

"Were you originally SpecOps?" Ratchet asked, his curiosity getting the better of him regarding how this young mech had managed to become so proficient in combining largely incompatible circuitry into something cohesive.

"Nah," Patchjob shook his head. "Was always a medic. When I hooked up with Breaker I got assigned to fix his kin, cause they freak Hook out."

"And how are you mechs feeling about leaving the 'Cons?" Ironhide asked, both challenge and open curiosity in his voice.

"I wasn't Con any more than I was courtesan, pleasurebot or Kaon interrogator," Breaker shrugged. "I'm clade Ripplesong."

"I'm alive," Patchjob answered simply. "It's preferable to what would happen if we'd staid."

Ironhide nodded in acceptance of he answer, giving a grunt of understanding, while Ratchet looked lost within his own processors.

Patchjob took the repaired sensor horn and walked over to Jazz, then hopped up on the berth to reattach it. "You really should consider a more robust horn with the number of times I've put these back on."

"But those aren't nearly as stylish," Jazz countered.

Ratchet snorted as he inspected the work with a respectful nod of approval for the young medic. "Alright, get your sorry aft out of my medbay. You're fine. Anything unusual on those repairs and I want to hear about it. I want you back in here in an orn so I can check the progress of your self-healing. I'll look at the sensor horns as well. There might be something I can do to reinforce them without sacrificing your precious style."

"Sure thing," Jazz grinned at him and hopped to the floor. "You're a lot more fun than Hook. He's scared of us. You aren't."

"You'd better slaggin' believe it, I'm not," Ratchet answered with a snort. "Already figured out thirty-seven different ways to disable you to do repairs or maintenance just while you were here, so don't frag with me. Would hate to have to teach you the hard way like I did with some other mechs around here."

"Aw, but if you did, I'd have to remind you why you don't mess with me," Jazz teased, his optics glittering behind the off-orange visor. "You're actually pretty good looking when you recharge," he winked the visor and darted out of the medbay, his agents and Sunstreaker hot on his heals.

"I hope he's worth the trouble he's going to be," Ironhide muttered with a shake of his head and followed at a more sedate pace. "Younglings. The lot of them."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is ready for his next merge with Prime, but arrives in a style all his own.

Optimus Prime returned to his quarters, weary and looking forward to a long soak in the oil bath and some recharge in his berth.

"Stay here while I check," Ironhide rumbled one step into the Prime's quarters.

"That is _very_ unnecessary," Prime sighed but didn't actually try to come further into his own quarters as his guardian stalked through the entry room, his scanners fully open.

A klik later Ironhide bellowed from the washracks. "What in the pit are _you_ doing in here?"

A half smile played on Prime's face as the door slid open and he was met with a sight that made him shiver: Jazz laying back in the oilbath, arms behind his neck, one leg bent out of the thick fluid, and a wicked grin on his faceplates. He had an outlandish fashion-visor in a style Prime hadn't seen since the last time he paid a ceremonial visit to the Towers in Praxus. 

Ironhide had his cannon pointed at Jazz's chest, whirling dangerously.

"Prime insisted on merging with me _regularly_ while I'm neutral in exchange for amnesty," Jazz flicked his chin towards the large mech behind Ironhide, his face plastered with a huge, arrogant grin. "I'm just here to fulfill my end of the bargain."

"I did," Prime said evenly. "He is here under my orders."

"You gave the fragger your entry code? Are you out of your slagging processors?" Ironhide whirled toward him, belatedly lowering the cannon so it wasn't pointed at Optimus.

"If I didn't, he'd get in just as quickly," Prime chuckled, ignoring the fact that he was misleading his guardian. "You are aware of his abilities, Ironhide. Eclipse knows of his movements."

Ironhide gave Optimus _the look_ that he had been giving his charge since Orion was a sparkling. 

"You want to join in?" Optimus added innocently, only barely containing his amusement when Ironhide took a sputtering step back and nearly fell into the pool.

"I don't think he could keep up with us, Prime," Jazz purred teasingly. "Or is it that Chromia would break him if he tried to stray?"

"Slag you both," Ironhide growled before Optimus could answer, turning around and stomping out the door. "I will be in the entry."

"He really needs to interface more," Prime murmured just loud enough for Ironhide to hear, which was followed by the sound of spinning cannons.

"Chromia really has him on that short a leash?" Jazz quirked the light on his optic band and sank into the oil. "Why don't you come relax, Prime?" he added with a crooning purr, offering his hand to the much larger mech. "You had a rough day from what I heard of it."

Optimus didn't need a second invitation before sliding in to the hot oil next to Jazz and letting it seep between his plates and into the depths of his protoform systems. "It was, but it is ending very nicely," he rumbled, delighted at how enjoyable Jazz had decided to make these 'regular spark interrogation sessions' that he had demanded of the neutral. That delight rumbled into arousal when the silver killer floated over in the oil and crawled into his lap before sprawling out along his chassis with affectionate hands.

"Anything but the regular hubbub over my presence?" Jazz asked with a croon.

Prime sighed, air bubbling up from his vents. "Had the staff meeting from the pit. Sometimes I must admit I envy Megatron's manner of dealing with unruly officers."

Jazz laughed brightly, his fingers playing across the large glass plates on Prime's chest. "You can always stop the arguments without the fusion cannon blast. They can only argue because you commanded it."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way, despite how exasperating it is. When it really matters, the arguing stops. Prowl is beside himself about you being here and the amount of access you have on base. Eclipse didn't help matters by explaining patiently that you had the skills to get anywhere you wanted to go whether you were in the brig or not. Prowl states that there is a point zero two percent probability that you could hide something from me in a merge. He thinks you are _that_ good."

"I'm flattered," Jazz couldn't help but purr deeply. He really was flattered. "Not that you should tell him, but if I wanted to do something, I could easily take it from first thought to finished between merges. Just ask Eclipse how fast we move when we need to. But I enjoy your spark too much to have it harmed," he added more seriously than he'd been all orn, his fingers moving down to tease the edge of the front windshield. "You're quite the addiction, Prime."

Prime should have been disturbed by the assertion, but at the moment, he knew more about Jazz than anyone did, and he was confident that his trust was not misplaced, or at least that the reward was well worth the risk. 

"Jazz," he rumbled the designation with more emotion than he had expected to. "I am gratified that you are addicted," he added in a teasing tone before giving in to the demands of his systems and spark, capturing the dangerously sexy silver mouth in a kiss that was returned with the full heat of a mech that existed to push the limits.

"I want to feed my addiction now," Jazz rumbled, sliding his interface panel open as he slid down Prime's chassis.

"In such a hurry," Prime teased, chasing his mouth downward for another kiss, sliding his glossa in demandingly even as his own panel slid open and a fully pressurized spike betrayed just how much a hurry he was in as well.

"Live in the moment," Jazz moaned into the kiss as he reached between them to guide the thick spike to his valve and slowly sank down, impaling himself on a spike almost too large for him to take in and relishing every bit of the burn.

Optimus gave a deep groan, his engine rumbling as the silver mech's tight heat enveloped him, lighting every sensor along his length until his tip was seated against the receptors deep inside, charge racing back and forth between them. 

With a ripple of his valve lining along the spike, Jazz shuddered and keened. He felt ready to burst at the pleasure, the thickness filling him. "Oh, _Primus_."

The towering mech reached under Jazz's aft, slowly lifting the small mech up, pausing when the tip of his spike was poised again just at his entrance. With a grunt he thrust up, _hard_ , burying himself fully in the slick, tight heat that welcomed him so completely.

"Take me," Jazz cried out shamelessly as his backstrut arched and his internals quivered. "Claim what's yours."

With a feral growl, Prime shifted their position so he was kneeling with Jazz's back pressed against the side of the bath. The silver mech's legs wrapped around the great mech's slender waist as Prime did exactly what the saboteur asked, owning him with a pounding rhythm, the sound of metal sliding in metal echoing through the chamber and beyond. Jazz moaned and keened, his valve working hard to massage and milk the spike rubbing so deliciously along the sensitive surfaces inside him.

They both wanted it to last, to draw out the intense pleasure, but neither had the will to oppose their bodies when Jazz's chestplates unlocked and slid open.

Optimus continued to pound the small mech, grunting and growling like some feral organic creature as his own chestplates slid open, his kaleidoscopic spark blazing with fierce intensity to have what belonged to him. The merge came fast, both sparks desiring the other fiercely and already familiar with the other's frequency and they were flooded with the awareness of the other.

~Nothing ever felt this good,~ Jazz moaned across the connection, his spark gleefully plunging into Prime's, but for now, he kept his awareness of self.

For Prime's spark, it was just that much more proof that this mech was strong enough to be worthy of it. To remain self-aware without a fight even when merged was a rare treat. Even more so when the other spark was willing to surrender that self-awareness when prompted, but only then.

~You feel so good,~ Prime said, or rather felt. Words at the spark level were not necessary. The eddies of pure bliss swirled through their living souls. ~You've shown me so much of your spark. What do you wish to see of mine?~ Prime's powerful spark seemed to say as he opened to the saboteur with a wash of welcome, excitement, and desire to be known by someone almost strong enough to resist him and live.

Instinct that went even deeper than core code, to the very untainted nature of his spark, delved in. Beyond words, the amethyst spark sang a pure, joyous 'everything' that was utterly untainted by plans, plots or anything related to his function. This deep, this open, this without intent or need, Prime grasped that the spark before him, within him, was a being of pure curiosity. It neither needed nor wanted any reason to learn, to explore. Its greatest joy came in discovery, in making connections and understanding for no sake other than to have experienced the beauty of the moment.

This spark would have made an excellent scientist or explorer, yet Prime also recognized how well those traits fit into his current function and made him exceptional at it.

Prime watched that joyful curiosity delve into his own nature. A normal spark, bright white like a preprogramed mech, woven with every spark color imaginable because he was, on a level, bonded with every spark that was separated from Primus' own, the living connection to Primus for all. Jazz saw the utter joy involved in creation of life, and the pain of being so torn from so many of those lives. Prime shared with Jazz not only his memories, but some of the memories contained in the Matrix - of ancient times when Prima literally brought forth all life from her own body and spark, and when time came, ushered them to death through the gentlest of overloads.

He felt the passionate mech latch onto that, felt the joy of recognition of what had lead to the Tower's tradition of the second creation doing so for their bonded, extinguishing both their sparks in tender care and reinforcing one of the fundamental tenants of the society his clade had tended and watched over silently from within.

Jazz was beyond words, beyond his processors, but his spark snarled and sang with the determination that had kept him and his kind alive and thriving through the war.

_This will be my fate once more._

Even the beginnings of a method formed as Prime watched in fixated fascination for how much of Jazz's talent was beyond programming.

Though it all, two things came clear; even if Jazz chose to officially be Neutral, he would protect the Prime, and his focus was now fully on ending the war quickly, no matter how brutal, underhanded or illegal that method was.

Prime reeled at the strength of resolve. Jazz had all of the qualities that a Lord High Protector should: protector of life, protector of the life giver, and, by necessity, ruthless when it came to making sure that Cybertron and the children of Primus continued to thrive. 

The pure passion of Jazz's spark was enough to tip the Prime into a roaring overload of frame and spark.

When he focused on his surroundings once more, Optimus found himself looking directly into dark green optics over the glow of their still-joined sparks.

~I have a favor to ask of you,~ Jazz spoke carefully across the connection, the full value of the statement clear behind it.

Prime slid his hands down Jazz's back struts and kissed his helm in invitation. ~Ask, Jazz.~

~Turn Moonracer loose. I've suppressed Nightstalker so she's stuck in stasis till all this is sorted out. She's never had high level access so it's not like she'd learn anything I wouldn't know anyway. She's not a threat to you or your Autobots, but she's still an asset if she's free to do her job.~

~I have no doubt I can trust you on this, even if, on a level, she is still acting as your mole,~ Prime said thoughtfully. ~My only concern is Cliffjumper. He is a loose cannon, and he knows who she is. I have ordered him to remain silent, but that is no guarantee that he will in the heat of the moment.~

A slight flinch echoed between them as they both realized Jazz had done something he probably shouldn't have without authorization. ~It's a reflex, to protect my own,~ he murmured, not the least bit ashamed, but keenly aware that he'd crossed a line. ~He doesn't actually remember the visit.~

Prime couldn't contain a certain level of exasperation mixed with morbid amusement at Jazz's uncontainable nature. ~Did you sneak into his quarters while he recharged?~ He could have simply looked into Jazz's spark to see, but trusted the Neutral to freely volunteer the information.

~Yes. He's completely unharmed, he just no longer remembers Nightstalker or anything else he learned from us.~

~Well, it certainly settles one issue, and I don't have to order him to the brig or put him under constant watch,~ Prime wryly admitted. ~Have you tampered with anyone else that I should be aware of?~

~No,~ Jazz assured him, firm and honest in the sparkpulse that passed between them. ~He was the only threat. Remember when I said things could happen between merges? He didn't know for an orn. I didn't even think, I just did. He'd deactivate her if he got the chance.~

Prime's spark pulsed his understanding of the nature of the one who was entrusting so much to him. ~It is in your nature to protect your own. It isn't something you think of. And now I am in that same category.~ Prime could not hide how much a part of him relished having someone in the role that his brother had abandoned, and his concern over what that would ultimately mean in terms of Jazz's actions. Jazz could not be contained, whether he was part of a faction or not.

~Above it, really,~ Jazz murmured, personally and professionally unsettled. ~Like you, I'll sacrifice an agent, even a clade, if the situation warrants it. Even before the war those were choices clade leaders had to make for the greater good. I'll sacrifice _Cybertron_ before I allow your spark to fade without an heir.~

Prime was deeply unsettled. On the one hand moved to the spark by Jazz's devotion, on the other hand, even knowing who and what he was, he felt deeply unworthy. 

~I am a servant, Jazz, here by the will of Primus to serve Cybertron and steward the Allspark and every life here. Cybertron is more important than I am. Primus will always find a way, even without a Prime.~

Jazz's spark disagreed violently, but his mind was less volatile. ~Without you, Megatron will win. Primus may find a way, but our kind ... not so much. You would leave _my_ kind to lead the fight against him and sort out what was left. No matter which side came out victorious, the result would be very bad. My kind were never meant to rule, and, well, you know Megatron.~

~On that I agree wholeheartedly. Megatron cannot be left to rule. I would dare say it would be better for Cybertron to cease to be than for our kind to become what it would under him.~ Jazz could feel the sharp pain and loss associated with those words. 

~I supported him. I believe in what he said he wanted to accomplish.~ Optimus said softly.

There was an uneasy shift in Jazz's spark.

~When I joined, he still believed,~ he murmured uncomfortably. ~Not sure he was sane, but he was still focused in the right place. Still not sure when he lost it.~

~Did he ever allow you more than a surface merge?~ Prime asked thoughtfully, his spark reaching out to draw Jazz in closer, preparing to openly show what he had seen in Megatron's spark during their final merge.

~Not intentionally,~ he almost chuckled cheekily. ~I got pretty deep into in processors though. Not deep like you go, but deeper than he would have tolerated if he knew.~

~When I finally demanded to see his spark, he believed he could use the opportunity to extinguish me. He wasn't prepared for how strong my spark actually was, and how much his still responded to mine. I demanded we merge shortly before I pulled my support.~

With that, Prime invited Jazz into the memory, one of the most intense of his existence, in which he literally ended up forcing a merge ... raping his own brother to find out the truth.

The silver mech shuddered, responding to Prime's emotions far more than his own reaction to the experience. For Jazz, the forced merge was all but a normal activity, be it clade for discipline or a target for intel. Prime was the first to force it on him, but it was not new.

The look into Megatron's spark even before Jazz had allied with him and the rebellion did shake him deeply though. Within the horrible realization that he'd been had by the former Lord High Protector was a solid respect for anyone capable of doing so. Once more, it forced Jazz to come to grips with being inadequate for his clade's needs. He had lead them wrong because he had failed and not seen his failure as it happened.

What he received in turn was compassion and forgiveness from the spark joined to his, and the realization that they _both_ had failed, and Prime's failure was far more spectacular. His initial support of Megatron's rebellion, his spark deep trust in his brother's innate goodness, led countless others to throw in their lot with the Decepticons. So many mechs had been disgusted by the privileged castes of leadership, but had still _loved_ Prime, and followed him to Megatron. 

~I _will_ not deceive you Jazz. That is why I'm opening my spark to you. Whether as a Neutral or an Autobot, I _need_ you, and so does Cybertron. We both saw things far too late, and must focus on redeeming the future.~

Something in the half-plea snapped Jazz's focus on one part of what was said and his spark swirled with an uneasy confusion.

~You need me?~ he asked, still hesitant about admitting uncertainty.

Optimus realized that he had let slip more than he had intended, and walls almost went up, but he forced himself to keep them down, to show Jazz just how deep a wound was left in him as a Prime without a Lord High Protector.

He was expecting many kinds of reactions, but _recognition_ was not one of them.

~How many mechs know this? Does Megatron?~ Jazz's laser-sharp processors and SpecOps leadership protocols snapped to the fore.

~If any of Megatron's LHP code is uncorrupted, he knows, because he is wounded in the same manner. Ratchet is the only other who knows, though Eclipse and Ironhide may suspect.~ Optimus admitted, confused about the reaction.

~Good, good,~ Jazz was focused on what he was looking at more than the mech's upper functioning. ~I learned my lesson early on, when my creator was still clade leader. Never, ever separate linked mechs, whether it's twins or those with a strong bond. You're not quite his twin, but like them, it looks like your original code's all centered around functioning as one half of a whole. Do you even know how badly you've mangled your own code trying to cope?~

Optimus was stunned. ~I have been attempting to act as Lord High Protector and Prime,~ he admitted shakily. ~I have had Ratchet add some of the code so that I could function as a war leader as my people needed me to be. I was never intended to be a warrior Prime.~

~No kidding,~ Jazz mentally rolled his optics. ~Why didn't you promote a warrior to the post, or at least to General? Seriously mech, you're more messed up than I am right now. You've got conflicting code from the pit and I don't even want to try to work out how your processor can still function. When an Ops mech has to be such a different mech the only way to stay sane is to completely suppress the original. It's not just about a consistent story and remaining undetected. It's about the only way to keep sane.~

Now that Jazz was looking, Prime felt he really start to _look_. Not just at coding, but memories and his spark in a cold, calculating way that still made the large mech feel cared for.

~I know my command staff, Jazz. I know them by spark. None of them can be a Lord High Protector. Yours is the first spark I've come across that has that strength, with the processors to match. But outwardly, I _must_ function as both right now. I _must_ be a warrior Prime. They must see me leading them into battle, willing to put myself on the line. Otherwise they will not have the courage to continue.~

~Okay, I get it, but you could have at least done it _right_ ,~ Jazz's words were chiding but his tone was pure concern and distress. The intense desire to reach in and _fix_ what he knew how to do so well was only barely kept in check. ~You've got Infiltrators, some damn good ones. Eclipse is no slouch at it. Ratchet's the best at his job, but he has no clue how to really change a mech's base function without scrambling them something fierce.~

~What would you do if I permitted it?~ he pulled Jazz closer to let him feel the trust he had for the clade leader.

There was a pause, a fairly long one, as Jazz studied what was before him with all the focused care he'd given his brother before his last mission, perhaps even more. Code, needs, memories and spark were all accessed, analyzed and contemplated.

It was nearly a joor before Jazz responded with a data pack that contained two files across the hardline connection he'd instigated during the examination. One was text for reading, explaining what every line of code he suggested did and why he put it there. The second was far less technical and meant for Prime, to help him understand the benefits to him, how it would ease the pain of separation.

Even with that done, Jazz pressed the knowledge foreword that there was nothing short of having a Lord High Protector that could truly make the ache go away.

Optimus left the particulars for later, focusing on the summery. Jazz's proposal was nothing short of brilliant. Using a modified from the profile suppression common in SpecOps, he proposed giving Prime three code profiles to work with. 

The first would be his Battle Mode, something very close to a pure officer-grade warrior. It was far more aggressive and capable of inflicting massive damage that his current mixed code could not handle. It was comparable to the code of a Lord High Protector, perhaps even more aggressive given it's limited political and tactical function.

The second was General (leader) Mode: a tactician-minded profile, closest to what he was now, but not nearly as conflicted. Using this profile, he could plan the war and deal with the army on an orn to orn basis. It was the most aware of his capabilities in all three modes, much like an Op's base profile.

The final was his Prime Mode: his original code, with blocks and code to keep it protected from what the other two were required to do. 

Voluntary and involuntary triggers were included for each profile to give him the most freedom while giving the most protection to both him and those around him.

Jazz purred and preened at the assessment of his work, delighted that it met approval of the mech it was meant to protect.

~Now, it's not perfect, and anytime you make a code shift that complex it requires regular maintenance and tweaking, but even if they refuse to let me do the work, I've given enough for Eclipse and Ratchet to do so,~ Jazz commented when Prime had assimilated the summary.

~It would be enough,~ Prime said simply, capturing Jazz's mouth with his own. ~It could make all the difference. I could finally meet Megatron as an equal in battle without corrupting my core coding and slipping into the insanity that I fear would make me worse than he is.~ Prime surprised himself with the admission of what was truly at stake. 

~We can not afford to lose you,~ Jazz shuddered at the idea, and in pleasure of the kiss. He squeezed and rippled his valve around the half-soft spike still deep inside him, encouraging it to pressurize once more. ~But right now, enough of work and real life troubles. Forget them with me.~

Jazz didn't have to invite Optimus twice, and soon the quiet of their merge was replaced with the sounds of the large mech taking the smaller with the strength of one worthy to do so. With each thrust the Prime grasped more and more of just how few -- none -- that Jazz had ever given himself so willingly and completely to.

If Prime was smitten with Jazz, so Jazz was smitten and more with him.

* * *

~Okay, spill it,~ Chromia's half amused, half annoyed thought filtered across the bond with Ironhide. ~What has your hydraulics in a knot this time?~

~Prime and that 'Con,~ he admitted with a growl across the bond. ~Prime is supposed to be interrogating his spark and instead they are going at it like petro rabbits.~

~You think the Con got to him, has corrupted his code somehow?~ She sounded honestly concerned, and she was, but not that much. Her bonded was easier to corrupt than the Prime after all, and good luck with that one.

~No,~ Ironhide admitted, sounding sheepish. ~I'm more concerned that he has stolen his spark. I think our Prime has fallen hard, and might trust him too much.~

There was stillness on her side of the bond for a lingering moment as she assessed that.

~Prime, _our_ Prime, is in love?~ She asked carefully.

~With a slagging 'Con, yes, that is what I'm afraid of. He even gave Jazz the keycode to his quarters, and the aft was waiting in the oilbath for him.~

She couldn't help but snicker. ~My plasma, nothing can hold that mech and you know it as well as I. Have you commed Eclipse to ask if he knew that Jazz was there before you?~

~No,~ he sullenly admitted. ~I was too busy trying to decide whether or not to bust in there after they'd been quiet for too long. Just when I was about to, Prime fragged him against the wall.~

~Mmm, so is there anything else that's bothering you?~ she crooned seductively. ~Like a charge with nowhere to go? It must be arousing, listening to Prime's pleasure.~

~I know how to take care of a charge, femme,~ Ironhide growled, but sounded more playful than angry. ~Though it would serve Prime right if we used his berth.~

~Ooo, kinky,~ she snickered playfully. ~If they're still in the oilbath when I get in from patrol, perhaps we should. At least we wouldn't break _that_.~

Ironhide's engine purred, his bondmate's playful suggestions doing much more for him than the sounds coming from Prime's washracks. ~Don't be so sure. We did break our own on several different occasions, though I don't plan on using my cannons against Prime's. So, you think I should contact Eclipse, spark of my spark?~

~It would settle your processors,~ she said smoothly. ~It would mean that he isn't really running around unsupervised.~

~I agree. What do _you_ think of our Prime falling for a 'Con, my spark?~

A wave of affection caressed his spark before she answered. ~I'd have preferred one of us, but if it makes him happy, how can we deny him the comfort of a lover? Though I'm sure they'll all remind you that Jazz has officially renounced his allegiance to Megatron and the Cons.~

~Ultra Magnus was good for him,~ Ironhide stubbornly claimed. ~Jazz isn't even one of ours yet. He may never be.~

~Yet if Prime's taken with him, he may be soon,~ she chuckled. ~You know how hard it is to resist that spark when he really _wants_ something. Could be the best recruitment tool we've got.~

~Now there is an idea to propose at the next command meeting.~ Ironhide playfully caressed her spark. ~If only to see what it did to Prowl,~ he added.

~You enjoy tormenting that mech entirely too much,~ she laughed brightly, not the least bit reprimanding of him. ~He needs to get 'faced more. It'd settle him down.~

~Are you volunteering, my spark? Shall we invite to our quarters for a threesome this orn? I know how you feel about sensor wings.~

The shuddering spike of desire flashed across the bond and he knew she was weaving wherever she was. ~ _Drag_ him in, if you can. I'll give you a show to make you melt.~

Ironhide growled aloud at the image she suggested, his systems instantly heating, one hand drifting toward his interface plate. ~If I have to put him in stasis cuffs, he will be in our quarters tonight,~ he promised. ~And if not him, I'll find another sensor winged plaything for you.~

Before she could send him another thought for their evening, the door to the private washrack opened and the two mechs walked out, both heading for the berth room next to it.

When Ironhide realized where they were heading, he cursed inwardly. It was looking like he would be standing guard for Prime's entire recharge period, which meant an enraged Chromia. 

"When shall I escort Jazz back to his quarters?" Ironhide asked hopefully.

"When he wakes, or when I return to duty," Prime rumbled, more relaxed at Ironhide had seen him in vorns. "Call another guard to take over when your shift ends in a joor. I'd rather not have to answer to your bonded," his smile turned teasing.

Ironhide snorted. As if he was going to allow anyone else to stand guard while Jazz was in Prime's berth. "Bluestreak is scheduled," Ironhide flatly stated, as though that would explain everything. "He is liable to chat you two up while you try to recharge. It would be best for everyone involved if I stay."

"Very well," Prime did not contest it. "Though if Chromia comes by, do go to your own quarters to entertain her."

"Worried about what we'd do to your quarters?" Ironhide asked with his optic ridges raised. 

"Worried? I simply _know_ what would happen, old friend," Prime said with an easy laugh, pulling a smirking Jazz into his berth chamber where all too quickly, the noises started up again. 

With a groan, Ironhide commed Killblade to take the night shift at Prime's quarters, instructing Bluestreak to instead guard Jazz's clade quarters. With the twins there, he couldn't get himself into too much trouble. He then sent Prowl a detailed data pack of just what Chormia would like to do to his sensor wings and a time to join them if he wished.


End file.
